Barbara McClintock Seminar
 

With great pleasure we welcomed Prof. Dr. Claudia Köhler to our institute to celebrate our newly established Barbara McClintock Seminar series, celebrating and honour all women in science as part of the international day of women and girls in science on 11 February 2022.

Claudia Köhler, director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, gave the perfect start to our new seminar series.

Being an outstanding scientist herself, Claudia gave a fantastic talk in a hybrid format on her research on ‚Transposable Elements Drive Developmental Innovations and Plant Speciation’.

This greatly mirrored the impact of the findings by Barbara McClintock back in the 1950s, when she discovered genetic transposition (“jumping genes”), for which she received the Nobel Price later on.

As an initiative by our Gender Equality Committee, the seminar was followed by an informal round table discussion, led by our Gender Equality officer Ismene Karakasilioti, with our speaker and a group of scientists, addressing personal and academic matters affecting women in science.

I am excited to see renewed interest in discussions on gender roles in academia and I hope to involve colleagues from all genders in our future actions.

Ismene Karakasilioti

Our new annual seminar series will be a great tool to increase the visibility of women in science, as well as providing role models for female researchers, which are still underrepresented, especially in higher ranking positions of academia.

We want to thank Prof. Dr. Claudia Köhler for her visit and the lively discussions we had and are looking forward to welcoming our next speaker for the 2023 Barbara McClintock Seminar.