Published: 11-10-2024 16:12 | Updated: 02-11-2024 20:36

New KI professors will be sharing their knowledge with future generations

Professor Liv Eidsmo and KI President Annika Östman Wernerson. Photo: Fredrik Persson

Centre stage at this year’s professorial installation ceremony at KI were stately academic tradition, prestigious medals and evocative entertainment – as well as intergenerational mingling between KI researchers and students at a much-appreciated hot dog truck outside Aula Medica on a chilly October evening.

In her speech, KI's President Annika Östman Wernerson emphasised the responsibilities and opportunities of the professorial title. Photo: Fredrik Persson

In it, she looks back in time and underscores the fact that good science has always been dependent on input from various disciplines, citing the example of renaissance man Alfred Nobel, who, apart from being a scientist, was a polyglot, author and art afficionado.

Everything is connected, she says, and quotes US author William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It's not even past”.

Following this, she presents Karolinska Institutet’s prizes and medals. One by one, the recipients step up to receive their diplomas, medals and ovations.

A title that brings freedom and responsibility

The sound of gurgling water introduces the dance duo Joanna Holewa Chrona and Yared Tilahun Cederlund, whose choreography evokes the human ability to cooperate. Isabella Lundgren sings, accompanied by piano and double bass.

Academic Vice President for Research, Marie Arsenian-Henriksson, enters the stage and welcomes KI’s new adjunct professors and visiting professors.

The installation proper then commences, with Professor Östman Wernerson stressing that the participants’ new title brings both freedom and responsibility.

Professorial installation in 2024 in the Aula Medica. Photo: Fredrik Persson

“The professors are now role models,” she says, “and their task is to share their knowledge with the world and with the upcoming generation.”

The people behind the title

Large screens display short films presenting the professors and their scientific work, and providing a glimpse of who they are beyond being world-leading researchers.

One dreams of writing a book on baking, another always engages in a secret competition to cross the road first, and yet another holds their maternal grandfather aloft as their idol. The guests also get a peek at different ways of working: one professor likes to sit at a completely empty desk, while another makes a point of sitting on the floor.

The ceremony over, it’s time for a social gathering, as the guests enjoy temptingly laid out nibbles, such as flame-toasted venison and caramelised onion flan. The mood quickly changes from formal to casually merry.

A popular decision

“You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties,” as the old song goes. But at this particular party, the really festive atmosphere surrounds the hot dog truck parked outside Aula Medica. Here, the mood is one of reunion, as current and former professors chat with friends old and new while they queue for simpler fare – sausages wrapped in a bun.

Rune Fransson introduced the hot dog cart and looks back on it as one of his best decisions. Photo: Fredrik Persson

The hot dog-truck tradition was introduced in the mid-noughties by the then university director Rune Fransson after noticing that participants tended to get hungry during rehearsals for the installation ceremony.

In the first few years, he provided them himself; now, as he takes a bite of his hot dog, he acknowledges that his ploy was a big hit.

“As university director, you have to make many uncomfortable decisions and can get a lot of flak for them, but no one has ever been critical of the hot dog truck. I’d go as far as to say it was one of my very best decisions.”

Text: Anna Grettve

Professors installed at the ceremony

Olof Akre, oncological surgery, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery
Annika Bergquist, gastroenterology, specialising in hepatology, Department of Medicine, Huddinge
Magnus Boman, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health, Department of Medicine, Solna
Liv Eidsmo, dermatology and venereology, Department of Medicine, Solna
Jan Ellenberg, cell biology and biophysics, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
François Lallemend, neurobiology of sensory systems, Department of Neuroscience
Weng-Onn Lui, experimental oncology, Department of Oncology-Pathology
Jette Möller, public health epidemiology, Department of Global Public Health
Anna Nilsson, paediatric oncology, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health
Ola Nilsson, paediatric endocrinology, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health
Peder Olofsson, bioelectronic medicine, Department of Medicine, Solna
Arvid Sjölander, biostatistics, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Anna Smed Sörensen, translational immunology, Department of Medicine, Solna
Kirsty Spalding, adipocyte biology, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology
Andrea Varrone, molecular positron emission tomography, Department of Clinical Neuroscience
Lisa Westerberg, experimental immunology, Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology
Anna Wredenberg, mitochondrial biology, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
Weili Xu, geriatric epidemiology, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society

Adjunct professors and visiting professors welcomed

Jana de Boniface, adjunct professor of clinical epidemiology
Artur Fedorowski, adjunct professor of cardiology
Hannes Hagström, adjunct professor of gastroenterology
Mats Lindblad, adjunct professor of surgery
Rickard Ljung, adjunct professor of pharmacoepidemiology
Stefan Agewall, visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Science focusing on the cardiac health consequences of climate change
Rino Bellocco, visiting professor of biostatistics
Carl Henrik Ek, visiting professor of machine learning
Katsuhiko Shirahige, visiting professor of cell and molecular biology, quantitative analysis of chromosome function