I'm Maria Rentetzi, I'm a Professor and Chair of Science, Technology and Gender Studies

at the FAU, Erlangen, Nuremberg in Germany. I've always had an interest in physics, I

succeeded to get into the university in the 80s and it was that moment I realised that

I was one of the very few female students in the faculty and also there was only one

female professor that was in Greece. And that was also the moment I became feminist, activist

and I realised that it's the time to do something and change the situation. My work focuses

on the relationship of science and technology to society and especially to politics, this

is what was always my concern. And let's use a metaphor, this is like my umbrella and I

use this in order to analyse science and technology from different perspectives. My main concept

that I use is of course gender and I also have an interest in the 20th century nuclear

sciences. I see this professorship as very challenging, I see it as a starting point

in order to create a very interdisciplinary and a very international research group that

is not going to critically analyse what science and technology is doing to society and how

politics is related to it but also how we can critically participate and this is an

STS concept that I want to use here, how we can critically participate in what is happening

around us. For example, critically participate in the design of new technologies or one of

the other topics I have been working on is also science diplomacy and what science has

to do with international affairs.