Bayreuth alumna manages the Natural History Museum in Vienna
The biologist Dr. Kathrin Vohland is the first woman at the head of one of the most important natural history museums in the world - and the first Bayreuth graduate in this position.
There are no professions
offered in biology, but it is possible to design the corresponding
professions," a professor Kathrin Vohland once said. Since 1 June 2020,
she has been designing the Natural History Museum in Vienna as Director General
and Scientific Director. In an interview with ubt aktuell, she shares
her memories of studying in Bayreuth and gives tips for today's biology
students.
Kathrin Vohland, head of the Natural History Museum Vienna
What made you study biology?
I have always found biology, and science in general, very exciting, and I chose it as a major in high school. However, I was just starting training as an industrial electronics technician, given that a biology degree was not associated with any specific profession at that time. Fortunately, I dared to apply for it, and thanks to the ZVS (central office for the allocation of places in higher education), ended up doing my foundation course in Bielefeld. Then I switched to Bayreuth for my actual studies because soil science and soil zoology were so strong there, and new interdisciplinary and exciting courses of study were being established in geoecology.
What is your fondest memory of studying in Bayreuth, the campus of the University of Bayreuth?
The intensive practical courses made it easy to get to know my fellow students. Soon, I was going on hikes around the area with my new friends on weekends quite regularly, which was very nice. Through these contacts, the opportunity quickly arose to work as a student assistant on a research project on agroforestry systems in Côte d’Ivoire. I was there for half a year. It was an incredible time. We lived near a sawmill adjoined to a village of huts, in the middle of cocoa and teak plantations. You could buy soup cubes at the colourful little market in small heaps, but even in the middle of the bush, people always knew the latest Bundesliga results.
Where there any life-lessons for you in Bayreuth, too?
As a student assistant, I also worked on a project of the Women's Representative, on "Career paths of women with doctorates". I was shocked to see that female biologists with doctorates simply disappeared once they had children. From this I learned how important it is to start your career right.
How did your studies prepare you for professional life?
In addition to the specialist knowledge, from which I still draw benefit, my studies also taught me the craft of arriving at scientifically sound results, and the importance of carefully selecting methods and data.
A biology diploma and now General Director of NHM (Natural History Museum Vienna) - not the obvious career path. Would you describe your career as a series of coincidences, or did you plan it strategically?
No, a career path like mine could never be planned, and certainly not as a mother. Pregnant women are not given any preferential employment, and biology was not exactly considered a career subject. I consider it an incredible success just to have stayed in biology all my professional life. Many of my fellow students ended up in completely different sectors. And this position as director general resulted from a mixture of skills - I had experience in museum management - and luck, as the call for applications came at just the right time. I merely seized at the opportunity when it came along.
Natural History Museum Vienna
The Museum is home to world-famous and unique exhibits, such as the 29,500-year-old Venus of Willendorf, Steller’s sea cow, which became extinct over 200 years ago, and huge dinosaur skeletons.
Further highlights on a tour of the 39 display halls include the world's largest and oldest public collection of meteorites, recently complemented by the spectacular "Tissint" meteorite from Mars, the permanent anthropological exhibition on the origins and development of humankind, and the new prehistoric display rooms featuring the Venus Cabinet and the Gold Cabinet.
Yet because time does not stand still, even in a palace of science, the 125th anniversary was celebrated with the opening of the new Digital Planetarium, which uses full-dome projection technology to take new visitors on a virtual journey, for example to the edge of the Milky Way or to the rings of Saturn, in stunning scientific detail. The Museum’s research departments are home to around 60 scientists conducting fundamental research in a wide range of fields related to earth sciences, life sciences, and human sciences. This makes the Museum an important public institution and one of the largest non-university research centres in Austria.
Were there any activities or networks - perhaps already on campus in Bayreuth - that led you here?
The first network I came into contact with as a student in Bayreuth was the Society for Tropical Ecology. Since then, I have built up my Viennese and broader Austrian networks as part of my commitment to citizen science. These include the European Citizen Science Association ECSA, a COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) initiative in Citizen Science, and the EU-Citizen.Science capacity building platform.
What would be your advice to today's (biology) students? Do you have any tips?
On the one hand, to study the subject with enjoyment and energy. On the other hand, I would like to pass on some advice one professor gave us: There are no professions in biology, per se, but it is possible to create them yourself. And in the face of our global challenges, biological knowledge is urgently needed right now - to preserve biodiversity, and to understand ecosystems and the interactions between humankind and nature in the biosphere as a whole.