Elisabeth Klaus - Biography#

After completing her studies in mathematics and social sciences in Münster, Elisabeth Klaus worked as a research and teaching assistant at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana) from 1981 to 1985. During her stay she completed her doctoral studies with the title Doctor of Philosophy as family sociologist. Just one year later, the communication scientist took up a position as a university assistant at the Dortmund Institute for Journalism. Within the framework of teaching research projects, the first studies on gendering in journalism were carried out, in which Klaus mainly incorporated her experiences from the USA. Until 1992 she was a university assistant at the Institute for Journalism at the University of Dortmund. In the winter semester 1991/92 she held a substitute professorship at the Institute of Journalism at the University of Hamburg. Between 1993 and 1995, she received a habilitation grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 1997 she was awarded the Venia legendi for the field of journalism. In the period from 1993 to 2001 several guest and deputy professorships were held, as well as longer research stays in Vienna, Hamburg, Klagenfurt and Dublin. Between 1996 and 2003, Klaus also worked as a university lecturer at the Institute of Journalism and Communication Science at the Georg August University of Göttingen. It was precisely during the controversies surrounding the transfer of this institute into a Centre for Interdisciplinary Media Studies that the communication scientist worked to preserve Göttingen as a business location. Since October 2003, she has been a full professor at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg and is the head of the Department of Communication Theories and the Public Sphere. She is also co-director of the programme area "Contemporary Art and Cultural Production" in the focus area "Science and Art" (Mozarteum and University of Salzburg) and was the past scientific director of the Doctoral College "The Arts and their Public Impact: Resonance - Transfer - Concepts“ (2015-2018) as well as the founding chair and since then a member of the Curriculum Commission for the Inter-University Doctoral Programme in Science and Art.