VDTR PhD representatives
The first meeting of the VDTR PhD students took place on 22 October 2021. At this meeting, a representative and two deputies were elected, one from each VDTR member organization. As the representatives also have a seat on the VDTR Steering Committee, their tasks include monitoring the tendering process for VDTR positions. The representatives are in contact with the VDTR management as well as with the doctoral students and thus assume an important interface function in internal communication.
The representatives can be reached at the following email address: student.vdtr@univie.ac.at
Verena Bartels
Verena Bartels has been assistant at the Institute for Old Testament Studies and Biblical Archaeology at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Vienna University since February 2025. She completed her studies of Protestant Theology in Munich, Marburg and Helsinki at the end of 2024 with the ecclesiastical examination of the ELKB in Munich. She is working on a dissertation project in the field of critical masculinity studies on the book of Jeremiah.
Mirijam Salfinger
Mirijam Salfinger has been employed as a Prae Doc University Assistant at the Department of Theological Ethics at the Institute of Systematic Theology and Ethics since the beginning of June. She also worked there as a study assistant during her studies. She completed her diploma studies in Catholic Theology - with a semester abroad in Madrid and two research stays in El Salvador - at the University of Vienna. In her diploma thesis she dealt with the topicality of Latin American liberation theology, which continues to be her research focus. Under the working title "Meaning and Potential of a Holistic and Inclusive Anthropology. Impulses from ecofeminism using the example of Ivone Gebara's conception" she will devote her dissertation to Latin American ecofeminism. In case of discrimination, bullying or sexual harassment, she is also confidentially available as a contact person of the KTF for an initial interview and, as a mentor for theology students, she is happy to help with questions concerning the studies.
Muhammad Bilal
Hafiz Muhammad Bilal has been a VDTR Prae-Doc since July 2023 and is doing his doctorate in Islamic Studies with a research paper on identity changes in the madrasas (school of traditional Islamic sciences) in Pakistan. He holds a Master's degree in Comparative History from the Central European University Budapest. His research at CEU focussed on 19th century Sufi jihad movements in North Africa, in particular on the study of the concept of jihad in the thought of Abd al-Qadir (1808-1883).