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Professor Ole Petter Ottersen | |
|---|---|
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| Rector of theUniversity of Oslo | |
| In office 2009–2017 | |
| Preceded by | Geir Ellingsrud |
| Succeeded by | Svein Stølen |
| Rector of theKarolinska Institute | |
| Assumed office 2017 | |
| Preceded by | Karin Dahlman-Wright (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1955-03-17)17 March 1955 (age 70) Kongsberg, Norway |
Ole Petter Ottersen (born 17 March 1955[1]) is aNorwegian physician andneuroscientist. He took office as therector ofKarolinska Institute in Sweden in August 2017. Ottersen has been professor of medicine at theUniversity of Oslo since 1992 and served as the university'sdirectly-elected rector from 2009 to 2017.
Ole Petter Ottersen graduated with thecand.med. degree at theUniversity of Oslo in 1980 and with thedr.med. degree (Med.Sc.D.; a higher doctorate in medicine) at the same university in 1982.
Ottersen was aresearch fellow at the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Oslo from 1978 to 1983 and aprosector (which in Norway is an academic rank in anatomy equal toreader) at the same institute from 1983 to 1992. He was promoted to professor in 1992.
He has been head of department of the Institute of Anatomy (1997–1999), Pro-Dean for Research of the Faculty of Medicine (2000–2002) and director of the Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience at the University of Oslo (2002–2009), a centre of excellence funded by theResearch Council of Norway.[2] He was editor-in-chief of the journalNeuroscience 2006–2009.
In 2009, he was elected as therector of the University of Oslo, whileInga Bostad was elected as the pro-rector.[3][4] At the University of Oslo the rector is directly elected to a four-year term by all employees and students, and may serve a maximum of two terms; the rector is the university's ceremonial head, chief executive officer and chairman of the board and thus corresponds to both the chancellor and the vice chancellor at a British university. By convention and formerly also by law, the rector is elected among the professors at the university. The rector's deputy and the university's second highest official, the pro-rector, is also directly elected alongside the rector.
In 2013, he was re-elected for a second term, whileRuth Vatvedt Fjeld was elected as the new Pro-Rector; she resigned the following year and was succeeded byRagnhild Hennum.[5]
Ottersen became a board member ofOslo University Hospital in 2011 and became chairman of the board of the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions in 2013. He attended theBilderberg Group meeting in 2011.[6]
On 20 February, 2017 the board of theKarolinska Institute in Sweden nominated Ottersen to become rector of Karolinska Institute.[7][8] He was formally appointed as rector by the Government of Sweden on 27 April 2017 and assumed the position on 1 August, 2017.[9]
In 2019 Ottersen became a member of theLancet–SIGHT Commission on Peaceful Societies Through Health and Gender Equality, chaired byTarja Halonen.[10]
Ottersen's research field isneuroscience. He is particularly noted for his research onmolecular mechanisms involved in the development of acute and chronicneurodegenerative disease, with a special emphasis on the role of cellular water balance and glutamateexcitotoxicity.
In 2001, he, together withJon Storm-Mathisen andPer Brandtzæg, was found to be the most-cited Norwegian scholar in international academic journals.[11] According toGoogle Scholar, he has been cited over 38,000 times in scientific literature and has anh-index of 104.[12] From 2002, he was included in the Institute of Scientific Information list of "Highly Cited Researchers."
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of Oslo 2009–2017 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Karin Dahlman-Wright (acting) | Rector of the Karolinska Institute August 2017– | Incumbent |
