Three new honorary doctors at Karolinska Institutet

An honorary doctorate in medicine is to be awarded to Juni Palmgren, Professor of biostatistics at Stockholm University, for her invaluable contributions to biostatistics as a research field at Karolinska Institutet. During her time as visiting professor, major recruitment and top-level competence development drive in biostatistics was carried out. Whereas there was once an almost non-existent recruitment base, there is now a unit for biostatistics with over twenty internationally distinguished research scientists. Its creation would not have been possible without Professor Palmgren’s devotion and extensive international network.

An honorary doctorate in medicine is to be awarded to Andrzej Werynski, Professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. As early as the 1980s, Professor Werynski was already establishing close relations with researchers at Karolinska Institutet’s unit for medical kidney diseases. Over the past 25 years, an extensive international network has evolved which has largely focused on describing and understanding physiological and metabolic developments in people with chronic renal failure. Karolinska Institutet is also indebted to Professor Werynski for the fact that we now research in several fields of numerical medicine and in the mathematical modelling of biological processes.

An honorary doctorate in odontology is to be awarded to Jukka Meurman, Professor at the Institute of Dentistry at Helsinki University, for his untiring commitment to the promotion of research collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and his own university. He has often been engaged as a doctoral examiner and an expert on the allocation of project funds, and has received young Swedish scientists at the odontological clinic in Helsinki. He is also engaged in an ongoing partnership with Karolinska Institutet on inflammation research, and as the secretary general of the Nordic Odontological Society he continually encourages his colleagues to form networks and report their research findings to each other.

More honorary doctorates for contributions to social development and personal commitment will be announced shortly in a separate press release.