Dorte Olesen (President)
Professor Dorte Olesen is the President of TERENA.
Born in Hillerød (Denmark) in 1948, Dorte received her MSc in mathematics and physics from the University of Copenhagen in 1973. She holds a PhD in mathematics as well as a Doctorate of Science, and has received the Gold Medal of the University of Copenhagen.
Dorte Olesen became an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen in 1980, after postdoc years partially spent in the US and France, and in the years 1986-88 was the Dean of the faculty of Natural Sciences in Copenhagen. In 1988, she was appointed full professor at the University of Roskilde, and in 1989 the Managing Director of the Danish IT-Centre for Research and Education, UNI·C.
She has been the President of the Danish Association of the Advancement of Science from 1988.
In 1992, she became a member of the High Performance Computing and Networking Advisory Committee of the European Commission, and chaired its Networking Subgroup (The LINKS group).
She has been a Danish delegate to the Working Party of the Telematics programme DELTA 1991-96, and to the Task Force Human Resources Group of National Experts 1992-96. In the spring 1993, she was a member of the DELTA Review Board, and in the spring 1994 a member of the working group planning the "Telematics for Research" programme. In 1997, she participated in the work of the "Strategic Requirements Board for the Fifth Framework Programme".
Between 1987-93, she was a member of the Danish Council for Research Policy, an advisory council to the Danish Government and Parliament, and among other tasks headed a national evaluation of the health sciences and the formulation of a national strategy for the health sciences. In 1991-93 she chaired a Committee on technology supported learning formed by the Danish Minister of Education.
Dorte Olesen is presently a member of the Danish ICT-Research Programme Committee, the Danish Defence Research Council and the steering committee of the Norwegian Research Council in charge of the Norwegian Scientific Computing Initiative NOTUR. She is also the Danish delegate to the ICT in Education Group of Experts of the European Commission.
In daily life, she heads UNI·C, the Danish IT-Centre for Education and Research, which delivers networking and other IT services to the Danish schools and universities.