Marina Heinonen (infrastructures, safety and security, and open data)
Briefly describe your professional background and experiences central to serving as a vice-dean.
I am a food chemist trained at the Faculty and now Professor of Food Safety. Besides teaching, my over 40-year-long career at the Faculty has included laboratory research on food composition, collaboration with the food industry, serving as a scientific expert of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and leading the Department of Food and Nutrition.
What do you wish to achieve as a vice-dean?
I believe that a resource-efficient infrastructure that keeps up with the times is necessary for productive research, innovation and teaching. This requires long-term investment and tapping into on a range of funding options. The Faculty has recently established infrastructure platforms, and it is important to develop their operations, increase their visibility and promote their shared use. I will do my part to ensuring that the Faculty is a safe workplace.
What is the most significant breakthrough of your career or life?
Securing the first grant for my research group from the Research Council of Finland has been the most inspiring thing in my research career.
Janna Pietikäinen (academic affairs, sustainability, wellbeing and bilingual affairs)
Briefly describe your professional background and experiences central to serving as a vice-dean.
I am a senior university lecturer specialising in the environment and sustainability. I am a forest soil biologist and work at the Department of Forest Sciences. I have taught and conducted research in both the natural sciences and the social and educational sciences. I have taught in the laboratory, on field courses, as well as in project-based and lecture courses. Teaching, guidance and supervision are fascinating work, and I have extensively studied university pedagogy. I have also been appointed as a member of the University of Helsinki Teachers’ Academy.
What do you wish to achieve as a vice-dean?
I am pleased with the opportunity to continue as the vice-dean for academic affairs, and I am already advancing new degree programmes in the planning and launch stages. Initiated in the previous term, this work is now in full swing in several programmes.
I aim to raise the Faculty’s profile as a producer of sustainability-promoting changemakers, while promoting students’ engagement in their studies. Learning revolves around interaction with teachers and other students, which is why I want new students to find their place in their degree programmes, the Faculty and subject-specific organisations, their hobbies and the University’s decision-making bodies as student representatives. I want each student to receive effective guidance in their studies and high-quality and inspiring teaching.
I also believe that is important to promote the internationalisation of education and students. Together with degree programme directors, I wish to develop ways to increasingly integrate exchange studies into degree programme structures and inspire students to seize this opportunity. We will also enhance other ways of collaborative learning with students of other universities in Finland and abroad by offering project-based and other courses across institutional boundaries.
What is the most significant breakthrough of your career or life?
At my university, I am happy to have been able to play a key role in new sustainability initiatives. Already in 2006, I contributed to the launch of a joint minor subject in environmental studies at the University. I was also involved in the establishment of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science HELSUS, as well as in the design and management of the Master’s Programme in Environmental Change and Global Sustainability and the sustainability course for all students at the University.
The most important thing in my career are the students I have had the chance to teach and guide towards goals important to them.
Maija Tenkanen (research and doctoral education)
Briefly describe your professional background and experiences central to serving as a vice-dean.
I am Professor of Bioproduction Chemistry at the Department of Food and Nutrition. I studied at the Helsinki University of Technology, which is now part of Aalto University. I have worked as a researcher at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Keskuslaboratorio Oy in Otaniemi, and switched to a professorship in Viikki in August 2002. Alongside my teaching and research duties at the University of Helsinki, I have served for two terms as a department director and one as the vice-dean for research and doctoral education of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. In recent years, I have held the position of deputy director of the Doctoral School.
What do you wish to achieve as a vice-dean?
As vice-dean for research, my aim is to develop the Faculty’s research fields in close collaboration with department directors, thus strengthening the Faculty’s impact as a producer of state-of-the-art knowledge. I also wish to assist researchers in networking and promote their opportunities to advance and expand their research through various funding options.
Supporting junior researchers, tenure track professors and newly appointed professors, as well as their wellbeing, are close to my heart. The goal is to improve researcher mentoring and create opportunities for collaboration. At a large university and a broad-based faculty, we may not notice the things we and others are good at. Spontaneous interaction and informal discussions often generate significant ideas for collaboration. I also want to promote the funding opportunities of doctoral researchers and develop doctoral education at the Faculty in collaboration with the director of the Doctoral Programme in Sustainable Use of Renewable Natural Resources and the University of Helsinki Doctoral School.
What is the most significant breakthrough of your career or life?
My greatest achievement is the training of junior researchers. I am particularly proud that one of the doctoral researchers I have supervised is now a professor at the Faculty, another an associate professor and a third a research professor at the Finnish Food Authority. Receiving the Marcus Wallenberg Prize in 2003 must be one of the highlights of my research career. Some of my research has even resulted in practical applications. It is rewarding to see the concrete benefits of research.