New PhD in the group
Birgit has successfully defended her PhD and we made the news with the first women dominated defense at IDI - see
http://www.universitetsavisa.no/forskning/article5249.ece
Congratulations to Dr. Krogstie with an excellent work! One can bet... more interesting work is coming - stay tuned
I am candidate to the Faculty Board. Election on Thursday and Friday. This is my presentation.
Motivation
I came to Norway just before finishing my PhD and NTNU has offered me great opportunities. My main motivation to be in the Board is to assure that IME will continue offering opportunities for growth to other researchers, independently by gender and background.
What is important for me
I strongly believe that research is paramount for IME. It is only by excelling in research that we can continue attracting the best students, both from Norway and internationally. Research-based education is our strengths and we have to make sure that this will continue to be our trade-mark in the future. This requires support to research in different forms, including more incentive mechanisms, more flexible allocations of duties, and most importantly, more administrative and managerial support to assure that researchers can use effectively their time to do what they are best at doing.
Excellence in research greatly benefits from multi-disciplinarity and cooperation within and across faculties. This is why as a board member, I would support the thematic area of ICT.
I believe that there is a need to streamline and improve communication from the Faculty to the Departments. This is necessary to promote better planning, more transparent decision making processes, and more grassroots participation.
I also believe that the Faculty in cooperation with the individual departments should promote actions to improve the working environment and to promote a culture of cooperation and common growth.
According to the university newspaper, female professors at NTNU are now paid more than male professors (on average). I am not fully convinced this is good news. Discrimination based on gender is not right, even if is in favor of women...but there might be a number of other reasons to explain the data.