Dr. Mariana Chuliver Pereyra receives the Margarethe Koenig Prize.
© Sabine Heine
Prof. Dr. Heike Wägele presents the certificate for the award to Dr. Mariana Chuliver Pereyra. Dr. Karen Meusemann, Dr. Claudia Koch, Dr. Mariana Chuliver, Prof. Dr. Heike Wägele (LTR).
The Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) honors Dr. Mariana Chuliver Pereyra with the Margarethe Koenig Prize for the Promotion of Young Women Scientists. The award will allow the reptile specialist to spend a free and independent year of research at LIB, Museum Koenig Bonn. Chuliver will use the time to gain new insights into the little-known animal group of blind snakes.
Prof. Dr. Heike Wägele, Chair of the Prize Awarding Panel, Dr. Claudia Koch, our Curator of Herpetology and collaborator Dr. Karen Meusemann presented Dr. Mariana Chuliver Pereyra with the official certificate of the Margarethe Koenig Prize of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Museum Koenig Bonn (LIB, Museum Koenig Bonn) on April 4, 2022. Due to the Covid-19 owed situation, it was a small circle honor. The award, which provides a fully independent year of research at Museum Koenig, Bonn, is given by LIB to support young women in science. Chuliver will now spend a year taking a comparative approach to the morphological evolution of blind snake skulls, a group of reptiles that has been little studied. She is also using the time and funding to focus her research freely and independently.
Dr. Chuliver Pereyra is from Argentina and completed her PhD at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC) in Córdoba, Argentina. The topic of the thesis involved research on the ontogenetic development of the locomotor system of frogs.
“The award recognizes Chuliver Pereyra’s previous, great achievements as a scientist. The funding will enable her to achieve further success,” explains Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof, Director of the LIB. Heike Wägele, coordinator of the Margarethe Koenig Award, adds, “With this award, we can support young female scientists from Germany or abroad for a whole year to continue their dedication to biodiversity and evolution research. The awardees should use the year to publish results, participate in training and congresses, and write proposals and applications.”
“The award will certainly have a lasting impact on my future career in many ways. My research stay at the museum will enable me to acquire new skills, strengthen collaborations with colleagues from Germany, and develop new projects for the future,” the award winner says happily. Chuliver hopes that emerging collaborations will strengthen her academic profile, help her bring new perspectives to her research, and further her professional development.
Margarethe Koenig, after whom this award is named, was the wife of the founder of the Koenig Museum. She accompanied her husband on almost all of his extensive research trips and played a major role in founding her husband’s life’s work – the Koenig Research Museum.
