Julian Reiss - Biography#

Throughout his career, Reiss has demonstrated strong academic leadership skills, both within university contexts and more broadly in many research fields. When working at Durham University, he co-founded the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS) in 2012 and co-directed the centre until he left in 2019. CHESS brings together researchers and students from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, sociology and health and social policy. He built a successful PhD program and supervised students with highly diverse academic and cultural backgrounds from North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Under his leadership CHESS has developed into a leading research center for "impact" (i.e., influence beyond academia) at Durham University and a major capacity building unit within the department. One of his former PhD students, François Claveau, now holds a Canada Research Chair. He also helped to develop and managed an interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Initiative on Anticipating Natural Disasters, which trains students in the prevention and amelioration of harm from events such as earthquakes and landslides from a natural science, social science, and cultural perspective. It is likely that the unit he manages now at Johannes-Kepler University Linz will become a similar magnet for excellent PhD students and outlet for world-class research and impact.