Prof Dr Viola Priesemann is a Board Member of “Die Junge Akademie”, professor of Physics at the Georg-August University and group leader at the Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation in Göttingen. She is a member of the Board of the Campus Institute for Data Science, the Cluster of Excellence ‘Multiscale Bioimaging’, the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her research focuses on living and artificial neural networks, carving out the basic mechanisms of self-organisation, learning, and efficient coding.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, she brought together and coordinated a transdisciplinary team of researchers to develop coordinated mitigation strategies. This team published several papers in The Lancet, including a practicable, transdisciplinary ‘Action Plan for Pan-European Defense against new SARS-CoV-2 variants.’ Within integrating researchers from small countries and disciplines this endeavor reflects the very values of European unity, transdisciplinary research, and the promotion of an open and inclusive science advancement in Europe.