Team Leaders

Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Philipp MITTEROECKER

I am a theoretical biologist, anthropologist, and biostatistician in the Department of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Vienna. I have studied the development and evolution of human and primate anatomy, with medical applications to orthodontics and gynecology. I am particularly interested in the interaction of developmental, environmental, and evolutionary processes. Another current research focus is on human childbirth: an evolutionary conundrum involving biological, environmental, and sociocultural dynamics. My methodological work comprises contributions to geometric morphometrics, multivariate biostatistics, and quantitative genetics.    

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Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA) Team Leaders

Robin GOLSER

Management Board

Robin Golser is head of the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA), a dedicated facility for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) at the University of Vienna. VERA is used for ultrasensitive radioisotope analysis including radiocarbon dating. Robin’s research interests lie in opening totally new avenues for AMS such as the world-wide unique Ion Laser Interaction Mass Spectrometry system and applications in Astrophysics.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Ron PINHASI

Deputy Head

Dr. Ron Pinhasi  is the Head of the Ancient DNA Lab. His research focuses on human evolution including fieldwork projects on the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Caucasus. He held an ERC Starting Grant project (2011-2015) that focused on human genetic history, migrations and admixture, and developed the widely-used ancient DNA optimisation method from the petrous bone.

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Department of Environmental Geosciences (EDGE) Team Leaders

Stephan M. KRAEMER

Management Board

Stephan Kraemer is the head of the Department of Environmental Geosciences at the University of Vienna and co-founder of the MINERVA (Mineralogical Preservation of the Human Biome) research platform. He is a low temperature geochemist interested in molecular scale bio-mineral interactions. A particular focus is the reactivity of biogenic molecules including ligands, reductants, enzymes and nucleic acids at mineral surfaces. His research interests include interactions of DNA with mineral phases in the context of long-term eDNA and aDNA preservation. He uses stable isotopes including strontium, mercury and other transition metals as process- and forensic tracers. His laboratory includes a MC-ICPMS isotope lab, trace metal analytics and spectroscopic facilities and methods for mineral characterization. After studying Earth Sciences at Ruhr Universität Bochum, he obtained his PhD in 1997 under the guidance of Prof. Janet Hering (CALTECH) and held positions at UC Berkeley and ETH-Zürich before moving to Vienna in 2006.

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Sylvia KIRCHENGAST

The main research focus is the evolution of human life history patterns, comprising studies concerning growth patterns in recent as well as historical populations, in particular the impact of endogenous und exogenous stress factors on body height and directional asymmetry patterns. On the other hand, female reproductive biology, in particular pregnancy, childbirth and menopause are focused on.

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Team Leaders

Thomas EINWÖGERER

Since 2017 I have been the head of the research group “Quaternary Archaeology” at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and group leader of the Krems branch. I am an expert for the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments, I am involved in extended international research networks and pursue the promotion of young scholars by teaching at the Institute for Prehistory and Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. I also maintain public relations and was curator for several exhibitions in museums in Lower Austria. As the principal investigator of the excavation sites Krems-Wachtberg (2005-2015), Gösing am Wagram (2014) and Kammern-Grubgraben (since 2015) my research focusses on the Upper Palaeolithic in the Danube Region. My interest is to get as much information as possible about past human behaviour, settlement structures and settlement patterns, art and jewellery and stone tool inventories. For this purpose, I also focus on the prospecting of Palaeolithic find layers by means of pile-driven probing and experimental archaeology (reconstructions and models).

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology (DEA) Team Leaders

Tom HIGHAM

Head

  I am a Professor of Scientific Archaeology in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Prior to coming to Vienna in August 2021 I was the Director of the University of Oxford’s Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. My research focuses on developing and improving the radiocarbon method and applying it to the dating of archaeological sites, especially those dating to the Palaeolithic period.

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Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) Team Leaders

Wolfgang NEUBAUER

Wolfgang Neubauer is an Austrian archaeologist. He is director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology since 2010. He is also member of the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) and teaches at the University of Vienna. His research foci lie in the archaeological geo-physical prospection, virtual archaeology, and stratigraphy. Some of his beacon projects included research at Stonehenge and in Birka (Vikings).

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