Due to her outstanding scientific work and her exceptional commitment over and beyond her specialist field, Schell-Majoor will receive the advancement award together with two other women scientists at the Federal Conference of Gender Equality Officers in Higher Education in Germany in Kassel on 23rd September 2015. The 31-year-old engineer is currently completing her doctoral degree on the subject of quality assessment of noise in the Department for Medical Physics and Acoustics at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg. As an employee in the Oldenburg-based Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology at the Fraunhofer IDMT, part of her doctoral research involves development of computer models that simulate the human auditory process and provide reliable predictions of noise quality.

FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE was established in Germany in 2006 so that well-educated women are not forced to significantly interrupt or even end their highly-promising careers when they start a family. The programme is supported by the German Commission for UNESCO and L’Oréal Deutschland. In partnership with the foundation of the Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, the programme awards three fellowships worth 20,000 euros every year in order to improve the situation of highly-qualified female postdoctoral researchers with children and thus allow outstanding women scientists to keep working in research. The award winners receive coaching and further training as well as 400 euros per month for one year for child care or domestic help. 10,000 euros of the award money goes to the institute of the award winner to allow realisation of projects that sustainably improve the compatibility of work and family life.

About the Project Group Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT

The goal of the Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology of the Fraunhofer IDMT is to implement scientific findings on auditory perception of normal and impaired hearing in technological applications. Scientists carry out applied research and development on behalf of industrial companies and public institutions in the fields of telecommunications, multimedia, health and care services, building technology, transport, industrial production and security. The project group was established in Oldenburg in 2008 as a branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT. Through scientific cooperations, it has close links with the hearing research facilities in Oldenburg and is also partner in the cluster of excellence »Hearing4all«.  www.idmt.fraunhofer.de