Deputy Vice-Chancellor for International Affairs appointed
Maria Masucci, professor of virology at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, has been appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor for International Affairs.
The position includes overall responsibility for KI's international issues, specifically the university’s long-term alliances with world-leading universities and research institutes.
“Our aim is to strengthen our position as an internationally leading university by engaging in international partnerships on research and education at all academic levels,” says Karolinska Institutet’s vice-chancellor, Anders Hamsten. “Maria Masucci is now in charge of the further development of our internationalisation strategy.”
Shortly after graduating as a doctor from Ferrara University in Italy in 1977, Maria Masucci came to Karolinska Institutet, where she has been studying and working ever since. Her research has focused on different aspects of tumour biology, especially infection and cancer and the interaction of tumor viruses with their targets cells and infected hosts. Apart from her research at Karolinska Institutet, Maria Masucci has held a professorship at Lund University and been a visiting researcher at MIT and Harvard in Boston (USA), the University of Birmingham (England) and the Netherland Cancer Institute in Amsterdam (Netherlands). She also has research contacts in Italy, Germany and China.
“It’s a fantastic, exciting honour to be given this appointment,” she says. “Karolinska Institutet is already engaged in important international partnerships, but we need to create more long-term alliances with leading international universities and research institutes. Doing this will enable Sweden and Karolinska Institutet to raise the quality of their education and research, and to translate results into innovations and new therapies more quickly.”
The new office of Deputy Vice Chancellor for International Affairs will bolster the university management, and is one of the important offices for the implementation of Karolinska Institutet’s Strategy 2018.