Stockholm university

Honorary Doctors 2022

Stockholm University appointed already in 2020 nine honorary doctors, all of whom have contributed in distinctive ways to the University’s activities in research and education. The new honorary doctors are: Jane Gaines, Tobias Svanelid, Lars Hörngren, Yuto Kitamura, Ann Åberg, Karen Kohfeld, Fernando Martín, Joanna Rose and John Rubinstein. They will be conferred their honorary doctorates on 30 September 2022.

Humanities

Jane Gaines

Jane Gaines
Jane Gaines

Jane Gaines is professor of film at Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts, Columbia University, USA. She is a highly respected film scholar internationally, and a pioneer within the research areas film history and feminist film theory. Her outstanding academic work includes manifold areas, including spectatorship and media history. Jane Gaines is one of the founders of the yearly film conference Visible Evidence as well as the founder of the Women Film Pioneer Project, which explores women’s involvement in film production during the silent era. Jane Gaines has for many years generously contributed to both research and education in film and fashion studies at Stockholm University.

Tobias Svanelid

Tobias Svanelid
Tobias Svanelid. Photo: Mattias Ahlm, Sveriges Radio

Tobias Svanelid is a journalist, editor and host of the radio programme Vetenskapsradion Historia in Swedish Radio P1. For 20 years he has helped in providing opportunities for a large number of doctoral students and senior researchers, not least at Stockholm University, to make popular presentations of their research to the general public. They include not only historians but also for example archaeologists, scholars in ancient history and culture, history of ideas, economic history and ethnology.

Law

Lars Hörngren

Lars Hörngren. Foto: Anna Nildén
Lars Hörngren. Foto: Anna Nildén

Lars Hörngren is a doctor of economics from the Stockholm School of Economics. Except for a short period as a researcher, he has throughout his professional career had influential roles within the Swedish civil service, currently as Senior Adviser at Finansinspektionen, the Financial Supervisory Authority in Sweden. Through participation in many government commissions and as drafter of innumerable referral responses, he has made a considerable mark on Swedish financial markets legislation over several decades. He has made important contributions to the research panel for Financial Markets Law within the Stockholm Centre for Commercial Law at Stockholm University.

Social Sciences

Yuto Kitamura

Yuto Kitamura. Photo: University of Tokyo
Yuto Kitamura. Photo: University of Tokyo

Yuto Kitamura is professor at the University of Tokyo and has worked at UNESCO, Paris. His research is in comparative education with several studies about education policies in Asia. Yuto Kitamura has been central for the cooperation between the University of Tokyo and Stockholm University, KTH and Karolinska Institutet. He is also a key person in the direct cooperation between the Department of Education at Stockholm University and the Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo.

Ann Åberg

Ann Åberg. Foto: Tidningen Förskolan
Ann Åberg. Foto: Tidningen Förskolan

Ann Åberg is a preschool teacher, pedagogical supervisor, author and lecturer. After 25 years as preschool teacher, she became a supervisor, employed by Bromma municipality where she still works. In 2005, the book Pedagogy of Listening was published. This bestselling book has been translated into Norwegian, Danish and Faroese. The text has influenced pedagogical practices more than perhaps any other text in Sweden. For 15 years, Ann Åberg has given lectures for preschool-teacher students at Stockholm University.

Science

Karen Kohfeld

Karen Kohfeld. Photo: Elena Sarasom
Karen Kohfeld. Photo: Elena Sarasom

Karen Kohfeld, professor at Simon Fraser University, Canada, is a world-leading expert in the global carbon cycle with specialization in the role of dust and the ocean circulation in long-term global climate change. She is particularly known for her work in developing datasets of important paleoclimate archives. Karen Kohfeld has strong research links to Stockholm University and also serves as a member of the External Science Advisory Group for the Bolin Centre for Climate Research since 2016.

Fernando Martín

Fernando Martín. Photo: TeleMadrid
Fernando Martín. Photo: TeleMadrid

Fernando Martín is professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. Over the past three decades he has made pioneering theoretical studies of how atoms, molecules, clusters, and surfaces interact with light and energetic particles. His research has received important international recognition. Part of his work has been carried out in close collaboration with researchers at the Department of Physics, Stockholm University, on projects in cluster physics and theoretical attosecond physics.

Joanna Rose

Joanna Rose. Photo: Kuba Rose
Joanna Rose. Photo: Kuba Rose

Joanna Rose is a science journalist and an author. Since the 1980s, she has covered the exploration of the universe on Swedish Radio and as editor at Forskning & Framsteg where she wrote about astronomy, physics and philosophy. She writes about the smallest and the largest cosmic objects, about what exists and what we can know, about artificial intelligence and the nature of consciousness – the span of her interests is large. Her latest book, Cosmic Puzzle, describes the recent advances in the scientific picture of the universe.

John Rubinstein

John Rubinstein. Photo: Thamiya Vasanthakumar
John Rubinstein. Photo: Thamiya Vasanthakumar.

John Rubinstein is a professor at the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, Canada. His research is focused on structural and mechanistic studies of protein complexes that play key roles for energy conversion in living organisms. John Rubinstein is a pioneer within electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) where he has developed both hardware and software used worldwide, including at Stockholm University. He uses these techniques to determine high resolution structures and to study molecular processes at an atomic level.

The honorary doctorates are conferred at the coming Inauguration and Conferment Ceremony in Stockholm City Hall.

Inauguration of New Professors and Conferment of Doctoral Degrees

For questions about the ceremony, please contact:

Anne Heikkinen Sandberg, Master of Ceremonies
Office of the President
Phone: +46 (0)8 16 47 16
Email: doktorspromotion@su.se

An honorary doctorate is an expression of the University’s appreciation of outstanding contributions in one or more of the University’s areas of academic activity. The awarded honorary doctor should be affiliated with Stockholm University or have contributed to the University’s activities in some way.

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