Verena Peer joins Academic Office as new MBA Program Manager

The newest addition to the Academic office, Verena Peer is from the German-speaking area of South Tyrol in northern Italy. She has been living in Vienna since 2002, where she earned a masters degree in spatial and regional planning at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU).

After several years of gaining work experience in the field of spatial and environmental planning, she returned to university in 2009 to pursue a PhD, completing her degree in 2013 on the topic “The impact of decentralized Higher Education Institutions on the migration behaviour of highly qualified graduates – evidence from selected rural regions in Austria”. Her research interests lie on the interaction between Higher Education Institutions and regional development. In addition, she has broad experience in lecturing, something she has always been very enthusiastic about.

Her first contact with MU reaches back to in 2012, when she began working with Harvey Goldstein and Sabine Sedlacek of the Department of Public Governance and Sustainable Development on the project “Vienna as a Region of Knowledge: Increasing the Generation of University Spin-offs” (supported by the Vienna Chamber of Commerce). In December the project was presented to great success to a gathered audience of about 100 in MU’s Audimax.

As with many people living outside if their native countries, Verena’s got the travel bug.  In addition to spending one year in the US at Purdue University, she’s had several travelling opportunities in her role as Chair of the AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning) Young Academics Network as well as the AESOP Executive Committee from 2012 to 2013. This position afforded numerous international networking activities as well as organization of conferences, scientific workshops, and interaction with young people from all over the world – all knowledge that is now useful to her in her position as MBA program manager at Modul University! 

Verena is very much looking forward to accompanying our MBA students through their studies and to make this program a unique experience for them. In her function as MBA program manager she will be responsible for a variety of organizational tasks (course schedule, course materials, and registrations), be in ongoing interaction with students and lecturers, and as a third pillar, promote and market our MBA program to recruit new students.

Furthermore, she will support MU as a post-doc researcher in upcoming research projects.

In her free time she enjoys spending time with her dog, training for marathons, editing the AESOP Booklet Series “Planners and Philosophers”. As much as she loves Vienna, an absolute must for her is regular trips back home to South Tyrol – mountains, hiking and great wine – what more can you ask for!

MU wishes a warm welcome to Verena and all the best in her new position!