On 1 December 2020, Natural Sciences will be welcoming as its new vice-dean for education a woman with extensive experience of, and interest in university education and teaching.

Kristine Kilså is 48 years old and comes from a position as the head of studies administration and deputy faculty director at one of four faculties at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), where she has been for the past eight years. In addition to being head of the faculty's studies administration unit, she has worked with educational development, quality assurance of degree programmes and strategic initiatives.

Before she moved to Sweden, for a number of years she was the deputy head of department for education at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, where she spent most of her university career as a researcher and lecturer before she moved on from her research career to take a more management-oriented and strategic course.

Kristine Kilså graduated from the University of Copenhagen and has a PhD in chemistry from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. After a period as a postdoc at Caltech in California, and as an assistant professor at Uppsala University, she was employed as an associate professor at the Department of Chemistry and NanoScience Centre at the University of Copenhagen in 2004, and later as a professor with special assignments in education and teaching. Her research area is about how light influences the structure and function of complex molecular systems.

A strong profile in the field of education

Kristian Pedersen, dean of Natural Sciences, is enthusiastic about getting Kristine Kilså onto the management team as the vice-dean for education.

"Kristine has a really strong profile in the field of education, and she is used to navigating as a manager within an area with great political attention. I'm sure that she can contribute and have a major impact on the faculty's development, not least for the development and quality assurance of degree programmes and teaching, and I'm very much looking forward to our collaboration," says Dean Kristian Pedersen.

For Kristine Kilså the position as the vice-dean for education at Nat is an opportunity to work in and influence an area that is close to her heart:

"I believe that education is one of the most important social tasks there is, and I want to create the best possible environment for it. For me, Aarhus University is a university that abreast with the times, and Natural Sciences is a faculty with exciting research and educational environments as well as impact in Denmark and abroad, and I'm very much looking forward to becoming part of it," says Kristine Kilså.

In addition to an exciting job with new challenges, the appointment as a vice-dean is also a return to living in Denmark, which Kristine Kilså and her family are looking forward to. She is moving to Aarhus with her husband and 11-year-old daughter.

Kristine Kilså has been appointed as the vice-dean for education on a limited tenure of six years. The appointment of the two new vice-deans completes the management team at Natural Sciences.

Read more:

• Two new vice-deans appointed for Natural Sciences
• New vice-dean for research at Natural Sciences