Faculty

Bo-Mi Choi

Preceptor and lecturer on the Committee of Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University; studied law at Universität Hamburg; B.A. in Philosophy from Calvin University; received Ph.D. in Modern Intellectual European History from the University of Chicago, where she taught in the Social Science core curriculum; teaches critical and social theory and continental philosophy at Harvard University; worked as Senior Producer of the Vienna Project at Harvard University and served as Director of the Digital Law Learning Lab (dL3) at the Law Institute of the BOKU Wien.

Film and production credits: The Burning Child (documentary feature / 2018) and The Dream of the Burning Child (animated short / 2013).

Nikolaus Forgó

Professor of Law, Head of Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law, University of Vienna; head of the LLM-program on information and media law at the University of Vienna; expert member of the Austrian Data Protection Board and the Austrian AI Advisory Board.

Selected Publications: together with Prainsack B.: Why paying individual people for their health data is a bad idea comment. in: Nature Medicine (2022 October); co-author of: White Paper: Data Solidarity. The Lancet & Financial Times Commission (2022); together with Hutter K. and Serentschy G.: Überlegungen zu einer Digital Policy und Regulierung aus einem Guss: Welche Governance braucht Österreich auf dem Weg zur Innovationsführerschaft? (2023); co-author of: Big Data, AI, and Health Data: between National, European, and International Legal Frameworks. in: Zwitter A., Gstrein O., Hrsg.: Handbook on the Politics and Governance of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (2023); together with Prainsack B.: New AI regulation in the EU seeks to reduce risk without assessing public benefit. In: Nature Medicine (2024 May); co-author of: A national evaluation analysis and expert interview study of real-world data sources for research and healthcare decision-making. in: Nature (2024 April).

Ernest Gnan

Secretary General, SUERF – The European Money and Finance Forum; Honorary Economic Advisor to the Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank; head of the OeNB’s Economic Analysis Division between 1999–2022; member of the European Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee from 2000–2022, and for over a decade expert member of the Austrian Fiscal Council; between 2010–2018 alternate member of the Austrian Competition Commission; giving numerous lectures on macroeconomics, monetary policy, EMU, European integration, and the financial and sovereign debt crisis; for several years adjunct professor at Webster University Vienna and lecturer at the German Association for Financial Analysts; since 2005, lecturer at the University of Vienna, and since 2006 lecturer at the Austrian Academy of Accountants; in 2019, awarded the title Professor by the President of the Republic of Austria in recognition of his contributions to science and research.

His publications cover monetary policy; central banking; inflation and inflation expectations; macroeconomic imbalances; financial markets, banking and financial regulation; globalisation; economic growth; economic, institutional and legal aspects of EMU; exchange rate policy, the European and international monetary system, banking and finance. 

Lena Hornkohl

Tenure Track Professor for European Law at the University of Vienna; studied law in Heidelberg and Uppsala; holds a master’s degree from the College of Europe and Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg; worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Heidelberg; commenced her work as a lawyer in the competition law department of a major international law firm in Brussels in 2019; joined the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law as a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of European and Comparative Procedural Law in 2020; she has taught at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the University of Trier, the University of Applied Sciences for the Administration of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Justice Academy of North Rhine-Westphalia; currently pursuing her postdoctoral studies (Habilitation) at the University of Heidelberg; her research interests focus on European, Economic, Private, Procedural and Comparative Law.

Christian Koller

Professor at the University of Vienna; former professor at the University of Innsbruck; held a position as a Post-Doctoral Researcher and Erwin-Schrödinger-Fellow at the University of Zurich from 2009 to 2011; specializes in international commercial arbitration and litigation; main areas of interest include domestic and international civil procedure and its interfaces with private law, international insolvency law, conflict of laws and comparative law.

Ursula Kriebaum

Professor of Public International Law at the University of Vienna; staff member in the office of the legal adviser of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2000, 2001); legal expert in the team of the Austrian Special Envoy for Holocaust Restitution Issues (2000, 2001); delegate to the UN Preparatory Committee for an International Criminal Court; short term expert in an EU Twinning Project; nomination by the Austrian government for the election of the Austrian judge to the European Court of Human Rights election in 2007; legal expert in various investment arbitrations and human rights cases; member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (since 2014); member of the Panel of Arbitrators under the Agreement on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union; member of the Panel of Conciliators maintained by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes; alternate member of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE (since 2013); member of the Arbitration panel for the Protocol on Cultural Cooperation to the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and the Republic of Korea.

Selected Publications: Folterprävention in Europa. Die Europäische Konvention zur Verhütung von Folter und unmenschlicher oder erniedrigender Behandlung oder Bestrafung (2000); Eigentumsschutz im Völkerrecht. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung zum internationalen Investitionsrecht sowie zum Menschenrechtsschutz (2008); together with R. Dolzer and C. Schreuer: Principles of International Investment Law (2022) as well as several articles on International Human Rights Law and International Investment Law.

Sylvia Kritzinger

Professor for Methods in the Social Science at the Department of Government (University of Vienna); Director of the Research Centre Vienna Centre for Electoral Research (VieCER); Principal Investigator of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES - Demand Side); Project Director of Digitize! Computational Social Sciences in the Social and Digital Transformation and the Research Network Interdisciplinary Research into Values; former Assistant Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS-Vienna); former Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin.

Selected Publications: together with W. Lutz and V. Skirbekk: The Demography of Growing European Identity (2006); together with M. Wagner and D. Johann: Voting at 16: Turnout and the Quality of Vote Choice (2012); together with J. Aichholzer, M. Wagner and E. Zeglovits: How has radical right support transformed established political conflicts? The case of Austria (2013); together with S.A. Banducci and H. Giebler: Knowing More from Less: How the Information Environment Increases Knowledge of Party Positions (2017); together with D. Johann, K. Kleinen-von Königslöw and K. Thomas: Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication (2018); together with C. Plescia, K. Raube, J. Wilhelm and J. Wouters: Assessing the 2019 European Parliament Elections (2020); together with J. Partheymüller and C. Plescia: Misinformedness About the European Union and the Preference to Vote to Leave or Remain (2022); together with T. Bernauer, D. Jahn, P.M. Kuhn and S. Walter: Einführung in die Politikwissenschaft (2022). 

Claudia Kwapil

Studied economics in Vienna (Mag.a from the University of Vienna, 1997) and in London (MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, 2002) and finished her PhD at the University of Economics and Business in Vienna in 2011; currently she holds the position of a Senior Principal Economist at the Monetary Policy Section of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Central Bank of Austria); her fields of interest include monetary policy transmission, monetary policy implementation and nominal rigidities (rigid interest rates, rigid wages, rigid prices).

Selected Publications: together with S. Fabiani et al.: Wage Rigidities and Labor Market Adjustment in Europe, In: Journal of the European Economic Association, 8 (2010); together with J. Scharler: Expected Monetary Policy and the Dynamics of Bank Lending Rates, In: International Review of Economics and Finance, 27 (2013); together with K. Rieder: The effects of the monetary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic: preliminary evidence from a pilot study using Austrian bank-level data, In: Monetary Policy & the Economy Q4/20–Q1/21 (2021); together with R. Ferstl and B. Graf: The pass-through of policy interest rates to bank retail rates in Austria, In: Monetary Policy & the Economy Q4/23 (2023).

Franz-Stefan Meissel

Professor of Roman Law and History of European Private Law, University of Vienna; Visiting Professor at the Université Paris Cité and Professorial Lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna; Director of the Sommerhochschule; Vice Dean of the University of Vienna School of Law; Speaker of the University of Vienna Advanced Research School in Law and Jursiprudence (Ars Iuris Vienna); chief editor of the Online Journal University of Vienna Law Review; since 2023 elected member of the Academia Europaea.

Selected Publications: Societas (2004, Premio Boulvert 2004); together with N. Benke: Textbooks on the Roman Law of Obligations (2021) and the Roman Law of Property (2024); co-author of: Nationalsozialistisches Steuerrecht und Restitution (2006); Le Code civil autrichien. Un autre bicentenaire (2015); Privatrecht in unsicheren Zeiten. Zivilgerichtsbarkeit im Nationalsozialismus (2017); Grundbegriffe der Rechtswissenschaften (5th ed. 2023).

Leopold Micheler

B.Sc. at the TU Wien; sports science student, certified fit instructor, windsurfing coach, certified lifeguard, certified snowboard instructor, basketball trainer, former player in first division men’s basketball in Austria, active basketball player in the Austrian College Sports League; teaching experience in Carinthia, Styria, Salzburg and Vienna.

Werner Neudeck

Studied at the University of Vienna (Mag. and Dr. rer.soc.oec.) and the University of Oxford; Professor Emeritus of International Economics and Chairman of the Academic Board at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna; 1997-2020 Academic Dean of the Master of Advanced International Studies Program (University of Vienna/Diplomatic Academy of Vienna); former AGIP Professor of International Economics at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University SAIS (1994-1997) and Senior Economist of the International Monetary Fund at the Joint Vienna Institute.

Selected Publications: Fee-for-Service and Quantity Rationing in the Physician Services Market (1991); together with E. Streissler: Wachstums- und Umweltpolitik (1994); together with K. Podczeck: Adverse Selection and Regulation in Health Insurance Markets: An Analysis of Recent Policy Proposals (1996); Das österreichische Gesundheitssystem: Eine ökonomische Analyse (2002); The Global Impact of the EU as an Economic and Monetary Actor (2004).

Paul Oberhammer

Professor at the University of Vienna; permanent visiting professor at the Law School of St. Gallen University, Switzerland; admitted to the bar in Hamburg, Germany; serves as of counsel with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, London (International Arbitration Practice Group); chairman of the working group that drafted the Austrian law on arbitration which was enacted in 2006; practical experience in different fields of arbitration as sole arbitrator, co-arbitrator and chairman, mainly in ICC, VIAC, ad-hoc, and SCAI arbitrations.

Author of about 250 legal publications, among them studies on international arbitration, litigation, civil and commercial law.

Helmut Ortner

Founding Partner at PARAGON Advocacy; focuses on complex multi-jurisdictional disputes both as counsel and arbitrator; admitted to the New York and the Austrian bar; studied economics and law in Innsbruck, Vienna, Harvard, and Yale; honorary professor of international business law and international dispute resolution at the Europainstitute (Saarbrücken, Germany); lecturer on private law, comparative law, and alternative dispute resolution at various universities, including the Universities of Vienna, Linz, and Innsbruck.

Selected Publications: together with T. Tiede and B. Koch: Conflict of Law – Text and Materials, (5th ed. 2018); together with F. T. Schwarz and J. A. Trenor (eds.): Contractual Performance and COVID-19 (2020); together with M. Kern and K. Plavec: Applicable Law in International Arbitration (2020); together with F. Schwarz: Does a Right to a Physical Hearing Exist in International Arbitration? (2021); together with C. Fischer-Czermak and C. Nigsch: Private Law in Graphs (5th ed. 2021).

Oliver Rathkolb

Professor at the University of Vienna Department of Contemporary History (2006-2024); chairperson of the Vienna Institute for Cultural and Contemporary History and Arts (VICCA) and the international scientific advisory board of the House of European History (European Parliament, Brussels); member of the advisory board of the Jewish Museum Vienna and the Archive of the Salzburg Festival.

Author of several books focusing on contemporary history; editor and co-editor of several studies concerning interdisciplinary questions of contemporary history and communications/media history; managing editor of the journal “zeitgeschichte” and the publication series “Zeitgeschichte im Kontext”; his prize-winning study “The Paradoxical Republic: Austria 1945–2020” was published in 2021 by Berghahn Books (New York/Oxford).

Bernhard Schima

Director and Principal Legal Adviser in the European Commission's Legal Service; studied law in Vienna (magister iuris 1991, doctor iuris 1994) and Paris and at Harvard Law School (LL.M. 1994); from 1995 to 2003 member of the chambers of Judge Dr Peter Jann at the Court of Justice of the EU; joined the European Commission’s Legal Service in 2003; postdoctoral qualification to lecture in European law (Habilitation) obtained at the University of Graz in 2004; honorary professor of European Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (since 2010).

Selected publications: Das Vorabentscheidungsverfahren vor dem EuGH. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rechtslage in Österreich und Deutschland (3rd ed. 2015); EU fundamental rights and Member State action after Lisbon: putting the ECJ's case law in its context, Fordham International Law Journal 2015, 1097-1133; author and co-author of several contributions in: Jaeger/Stöger (eds.), Kommentar zu EUV und AEUV, and in: Kellerbauer/Klamert/Tomkin (eds.), Commentary on the EU-Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights (2nd edition 2024).

Andreas Schloenhardt

PhD (University of Adelaide); Professor of Criminal Law, School of Law, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; Honorary Professor of Foreign and International Criminal Law, University of Vienna, Austria; consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Vienna; Visiting Professor, University of Zurich, University of St Gallen, Switzerland, and University of Ferrara, Italy; principal areas of research: criminal law, organized crime, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons, wildlife and forest crime, irregular migration and immigration and refugee law; adjunct appointments and visiting professorships at Bucerius Law School, Hamburg (2016 and 2013); National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (2011), University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2007–2009); Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA (2006–2009); recipient of a Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (2011-2012).

Slavica Serdar

Master in Translation Studies (German, English and Croatian) at the Department of Translation Studies in Graz; studied translation studies at the Dublin City University; certificate in German as a Foreign/Second Language from the University of Graz; currently teaching German courses at the Language Center of the University of Vienna.