Honorary doctorates and Doctors

A wide-ranging and internationally recognised researcher, Karen V. Hansen’s research and teaching combines sociology and history, and she does so across a broad chronological spectrum. On account of the combination of Karen V. Hansen’s impressive academic scope and her many influential sociological contributions, SDU is proud to award her an honorary doctorate.

Karen V. Hansen's research is characterised by its clear writing style, a superb theoretical overview, an impressive analytical depth and an empathic approach to the material, which is based on a true wealth of sources. At the same time, Hansen's research spans a broad chronological spectrum and a diversity of subjects.

For the past 30 years, Dr Gordon Hager has conducted research into chromatin biology, an area that belongs to the complex and constantly surprising field of research in epigenetics, which has shown that our cells contain other hereditary material than DNA. Dr Hager’s work is of great importance for the understanding of, for instance, major diseases such as cancer. Gordon Hager has been associated with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at SDU since 2014 and has made a significant contribution to both teaching and research together with, among others, Professor Susanne Mandrup from SDU, Head of Research and Head of the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (D-IAS).

Eric Arnould received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Arizona, Tucson in 1982 for a project on market relations in West Africa. After working as a development consultant in Niger for a number of years, he has since 1986 held a large number of academic positions, initially in anthropology and then marketing in the US, United Kingdom, Denmark, France and Finland. He is currently a senior fellow at Aalto University in Helsinki. He is awarded an honorary doctorate at SDU for:

• Pioneering anthropological research on the market and its institutions as well as on consumer cultural theory, a field he has helped to establish.
• A nearly 25-year collaboration with SDU on the establishment of a leading international research environment within consumer culture theory and market systems.
• A significant contribution to the building and success of SDU's unique education programme in Market and Management Anthropology (commonly known as ‘MMA’).

Professor Netea is one of the world's leading experts in infectious diseases and immunology. He is especially recognised as the first to have demonstrated memory properties of the innate immune system, a phenomenon often called ‘trained immunity’. He was awarded the Spinoza Prize, among others, in 2016 for this discovery.

In summary, Netea’s discovery of ‘trained immunity’ represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of immunological memory and its evolutionary roots. The understanding of the molecular basis of the underlying processes has identified new therapeutic targets, and this will most certainly lead to a new generation of vaccines and immunotherapeutic drugs.

Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz has a long career behind her in bioimaging and cell biology. Her research has had an enormous impact on how we understand cell biology today and how we can use bioimaging in molecular biology.