Taina Pihlajaniemi - Curriculum Vitae#

Research expertise: Internationally leading expert on collagens

Education and degrees completed:

• 1987 Docent in Medical Biochemistry, Univ. of Oulu, Finland
  
• 1987 Doctor of Medical Sciences (equivalent to Ph.D.), Univ. of Oulu
  
• 1981 Licentiate of Medicine, Univ. of Oulu, and license to practice medicine

Current and previous positions:

• 2010-2025, Vice Rector/Vice President (Research), Univ. of Oulu
  
• 1991-2009 Chairman, Depart. of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Univ. of Oulu
  
• 1990- Professor of Medical Biochemistry, Univ. of Oulu
  
• 1985-1990 Research Associate and Junior Research Fellow, Academy of Finland (AoF)
  
• 1982-1985 Research/Teaching Specialist III (post-doctoral fellow), University of Medicine and Dentistry - Rutgers Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA

Research supervision:

Supervised 47 PhD or MD-PhD degrees to completion and 28 post-doctoral scientists

Previous leadership experience:

• 2000 - 2005 (Vice) Director, Collagen Research Unit, Univ. of Oulu, AoF Center of Excellence in Research
  
• 1996 - 2009 Scientific Director, Biocenter Oulu and the core facilites
  
• 1996 - 2009 Director, Biocenter Oulu Graduate School
  
• 2006 - 2007 Founding Director, Biocenter Finland
  
• 2012 - 2017 Director, AoF Center of Excellence in Cell-Extracellular Matrix Research

Teaching experience:

1990-2009 Head of medical and dental studies in chemistry, medical biochemistry and molecular biology, Faculty of Medicine, Univ. of Oulu

Evaluation of academic competence and search committee memberships:

• Pre-examiner, Doctoral Dissertations (7 times), Univ. of Helsinki and Turku
  
• Opponent, Doctoral Dissertations (6 times), Univ. of Oulu, Turku, Rennes, Uppsala
  
• Evaluator, Docentships (8 times), Univ. of Turku and Helsinki
  
• Evaluator, Professorships (3 times), Univ. of Kuopio, Turku and Helsinki

Keynote and speaker invitations: ca. 3-4/year

Experience of organizing scientific meetings:

• 2006, Chair, the XXth Meeting of the Federation of European Connective Tissue Societies, Oulu, Finland
  
• 2009, Chair, Mouse as a Model Organism Conference, Rovaniemi, Finland
  
• 2019, 2023, Vice chair in 2019 and Chair in 2021 (re-scheduled to 2023 due to COVID-19 pandemic) of the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Collagen, New London, USA