The Exner Perspectives 2026

Sabine Seidler studied polymer materials engineering and was awarded her doctorate in 1989. Her academic career took her from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, via Ruhr University Bochum, to the Vienna University of Technology. She has been a professor of non-metallic materials there since 1996. In 2007, she became the first woman to be appointed to the Rectorate of the Vienna University of Technology as Vice-Rector for Research. She served as Rector from 2011 to 2023. She is involved in a wide range of activities, including as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, President of the FWF’s alpha+ Foundation, Vice-President of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation, and a member of the Supervisory Board at the Helmholtz Centre Hereon in Geesthacht. Since 2024, she has also been working as the City of Vienna’s STEM Envoy.

Alexander Bogner is a sociologist at the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. His research focuses on science and technology studies. In 2023, at the initiative of the Austrian federal government, he led the research project reassessing the COVID-19 crisis. From 2019 to 2025, he served as President of the Austrian Sociological Association.