Minister Paula Risikko and six top scientists receive Honorary Doctorates at the University of Tampere

Lectures by the Honorary Doctors in a Scientific Symposium

Time: Thu 20 September at 9—13
Venue: School of Medicine, Arvo Building, Jarmo Visakorpi Auditorium, Lääkärinkatu 1

The joint Ceremonial Conferment of Doctoral Degrees at the School of Medicine, the Institute of Biomedical Technology and the School of Health Sciences will be celebrated from Thursday to Saturday 20-22 September 2012. Apart from the University’s own doctors, seven Honorary Doctorates will be conferred on Friday to scientists who have made significant achievements in their fields of science.

Professor Matti Aapro, Professor Ronald Harden and Doctor of Health Sciences, Minister Paula Risikko will receive honorary doctorates in Medicine. Professor Pierre Rustin and Professor Viola Vogel will become honorary doctors in Philosophy. Professor Donald Maxwell Parkin and Professor Britt-Inger Saveman will become honorary doctors in Health Sciences.

Matti Aapro completed his doctoral degree at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva. He has worked as a researcher for example in the Arizona Cancer Center in Tuscon and the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. At present, Aapro works as Dean at Clinique de Genolier in Switzerland.

Aapro has published and edited hundreds of books and journals in his field of specialty. His research interests lie in drug development, breast cancer and the treatment of pain in cancer patients. Since the late 1980s, Aapro has concentrated on developing the treatment of elderly cancer patients.

Ronald Harden is an endocrinologist who graduated from Glasgow Medical School and who has specialised in the education of physicians. Harden is well-known especially for developing problem-based integrated teaching methods. For example, he has developed and implemented an evaluation method of students at the clinical stage. The evaluation method of the clinical skills of students that is in use at the University of Tampere is based on Professor Harden’s method. Harden has worked as the Director of the Centre for Medical Education at the University of Dundee and he is currently the General Secretary of AMEE, the International Association for Medical Education. Harden is one of the world-leading experts on medical education.

Paula Risikko completed her doctoral degree at the University of Tampere in 1997. Prior to that, she had graduated as a nurse, a clinical nurse specialist, a lecturer in nursing, and a Master of Health Sciences.

The topic of Risikko’s doctoral dissertation was the qualification requirements of nurses at the present time and in the future. The research looked at, for example, the impact of social change on health care and on the work in the field. This theme is still topical today and it is important from the point of view of the development of the structures and components of health care.

Risikko has worked as a nurse e.g. in the South Ostrobothnia Health Care District and a lecturer in nursing in the Seinäjoki and Kuopio Institutes of Health Care Studies. In Seinäjoki, she has also worked as a director of adult education. From 2003, she has worked as the Vice-Rector of Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences,

Paula Risikko was elected an MP in 2003. She worked as the Minister of Health and Social Services in the Vanhanen and Kivimäki Governments of 2007-2011. From 2011, she has been Minister of Social Affairs and Health in the Katainen Government.

Pierre Rustin is a world-leading researcher of mitochondria. He works as the Research Director of Hôpital Debre in Paris where he focuses on the physiopathology and therapy of mitochondrial diseases. In the 1990s and 2000s, he had a significant role in mapping out the metabolic functions in mitochondrial diseases.

For quite some time now, Rustin has been collaborating with Professor Howard Jacobs’ research group at the University of Tampere in the research of mitochondrial dysfunction. The goal of the joint project is to develop treatment for mitochondrial diseases, and especially neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. Rustin was a member of the research consortium, directed by Howy Jacobs, that received the Descartes Science Prize of the EU in 2004.

Viola Vogel was the Founding Director of the Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Washington (1997-2003) before moving on to Switzerland in 2004. She worked in several research communities in the US and Europe. For example, she was involved in preparing the National Nanotech Initiative during Clinton administration in 1999—2002.

At present, Vogel works as Professor of Department Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST), at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich. The Department was founded in January 2012. She directs a laboratory where her research focuses on mechanic biology and biological nanosystems and especially on bacterial and cellular biochemistry.

Max Parkin worked in the development of health care in Britain before moving on to the International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR) of WHO in Lyon in 1981. He holds honorary professorships at the Universities of Beijing and Tianjin in China and at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He is a member of the editorial boards of several scientific journals and has also taught at the University of Tampere.

Parkin’s internationally renowned work has focused especially on world-wide cancer registers and on the statistics of the epidemiology of and morbidity from cancer and, in doing so, gaining an understanding on the prevention of cancer and other diseases.

Britt-Inger Saveman works as the Professor of nursing at Umeå University Sweden. Family care and its development, especially the experiences of the family and nursing in families, have been her research interest for 15 years. In addition, Saveman researches accident prevention, health promotion and the nursing of the elderly.

For more information on the Ceremonial Conferment:  
- Niina Puronurmi, Secretary of the Conferment Committee, tel. 050 349 7036, niina.puronurmi@uta.fi
- Hanna Saressalo,  Conferment Office, tel. 050 318 6675, hanna.saressalo@uta.fi

Events, times and places of the Ceremonial Conferment:
http://www.uta.fi/med/promootio/ceremonial_conferment.html