Into the JKUniverse – Science starts with you

Together with her team at the JKU Linz’s LIFT_C, Patricia Stark produces formats that facilitate real collaboration between science, society, and students. Drawing on fifteen years of working in the industrial sector, she is most interested in what happens in between disciplines. She is trying to understand how we can achieve transformation and shape the future together.

Besides his work as a social media manager and podcast host at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Gregor Pechmann has been responsible for coordinating all JKU Linz activities at the Ars Electronica Festival since 2020, including the locations on the JKU Campus (2020–2022) and the JKU MED Campus (2024), as well as the Art&Science projects sponsored by the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT). In 2022, he also contributed to the LIT project Melody of Crisis/Joy as an artist.

Kerstin Pell-Langaditis has worked at JKU Linz since 2020, first in the Vice-Rectorate for Innovation and Researchers, where she was responsible for launching and developing projects at the interface between art and science, and later in the initial phase of the Art x Science School for Transformation. She joined LIFT_C in the summer of 2025.

Claudia Scheba is part of the LIFT_C team at JKU Linz. As a project manager, she is responsible for organizational matters and coordinates events. She is particularly interested in how collaboration between different actors can lead to new solutions—as in the UpdateSocial project, which addressed social challenges in Upper Austria.

Denise Atteneder studies Sociology at JKU Linz and is a student assistant at LIFT_C. Before that, she worked at the Art x Science School for Transformation. Her interests lie in science communication and transdisciplinary approaches to tackling social issues.

Linda Huber is a project manager at LIFT_C and at Johannes Kepler University Linz. For several years, she has developed a broad range of event formats, from scientific symposia to mental health awareness events. She is also involved in staging theater productions at JKU’s Circus of Knowledge. As a certified herbalist, she infuses her love of nature into her work, valuing the principles of sustainability, seasonality, and regionality.

Laura Thäter is a research assistant and PhD student at the Linz Institute for Transformative Change. She previously worked on open social innovation processes at the Hertie School Berlin. In 2025, she conducted research at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford with funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research. Her work connects organizational theory with questions addressing the sustainable and fair design of digital labor markets.

Milena Leybold is a postdoctoral researcher at LIFT_C’s Sustainable Transformation Management Lab. With a theoretical focus on (communicative) practices, she explores phenomena of organizational openness, organizational inclusion and exclusion, online resistance, and strategic planning using qualitative research methods. Over the past three years, she has studied alternative approaches to intellectual property with a particular focus on open science vaccine initiatives.