For this feature, we ask our female PIs three questions – about the SFB, their career, their balancing of work and private life, gender issues in general etc.
Which aspect of being a principal investigator do you like best?
The best part about being a scientist at a university is having the freedom to decide what topic you and your team work on. This scientific freedom allows me to do what I love: understanding how the archaeal cell works in all its aspects. It is really satisfying to be able to decide with my team to change direction and work on other aspects of a topic, just because we found an exciting new result in one of our experiments.
What do you appreciate most about our SFB 1381?
The SFB 1381 is a great consortium because it unites groups that study various organisms, including bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes, but we are all interested in one question: how do protein machineries assemble to perform different functions. Because the scientific backgrounds are so diverse, there is an opportunity to learn about different techniques and establish collaborations that would not be possible outside of this consortium. I really enjoy the discussions and interactions with the PIs, PhD students, and postdocs in the SFB 1381
How do you answer the question: …”and who is looking after the kids?”
The answer to this question depends on the stage of our careers: Our kids were born in the Netherlands, where we had much better access to childcare and it was absolutely normal to start kindergarten at three or four months of age. I worked four days a week so my husband could start his own research group. The kids could stay in kindergarten until 6 p.m., which left me plenty of time to do my postdoctoral work. However, when we moved to Marburg, the situation changed because the only kindergarten we found was open until 4 p.m. So, we had “short” and “long” workdays, which we balanced equally between us. However, I was traveling more for conferences at that time, so my husband took care of the kids. When we moved to Freiburg, the kids were already in school. My husband went to more sports and school events to give me time to establish our group in Freiburg and I am really grateful he gave me that time. Now that the kids are 18 and 20, they need us in different ways. They no longer need to be “looked after,” though! We are excited to see how they develop: The older one is studying to become a biology teacher and it will be interesting to see what the younger one decides to do in the future!
Sonja-Verena Albers began her scientific career in Groningen before moving to Marburg and finally to Freiburg, where she became a W3 professor at the University in 2014. She currently serves as dean of the Faculty of Biology. Her research focuses on various aspects of Archaea, and she leads project A01 in our SFB while also being a member of the management board. She received an ERC Advanced Grant for her project “ARCHCELLORG – Organization of the Archaeal Cell”.
