KONSTANZE ZWINTZ
Professor of stellar astrophysics. Scientist. A passionate woman and thinker.
Konstanze Zwintz reaches for the stars. A professor of stellar astrophysics at Innsbruck University, her research focuses on a better understanding of early stellar evolution through the analysis of the young stars' pulsations. Recognised globally as leader in her field, Zwintz was encouraged by her family to harness herself belief, and to reach for the stars, and she did. Konstanze Zwintz started to play the piano when she was five years old and still enjoys playing classical music as counterbalance to, but also inspiration for her job as researcher and professor. In Zwintz’s opinion, creativity, inspiration, curiosity and passion are important both for music and for science.
Konstanze Zwintz / Foto © Bechyna
“Never give up and believe in your dreams!”
Konstanze Zwintz about her work:
“I have always been interested in how stars are formed from dust and gas in the universe. You can't follow the birth of stars live because it often takes hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, the young stars are usually embedded in the material from which they are born, which means that special measuring instruments are needed to observe these phases with telescopes. Just as I have always been interested in the formation of stars, I have also been fascinated by satellites, rockets and space technology. And as an astronomer, I have been fortunate enough to be scientifically involved in several space telescopes. This ranges from pure research using satellite data (e.g. from NASA's Kepler or TESS space telescopes) to involvement in development (e.g. for the Canadian satellite MOST, the European satellite CoRoT and BRITE-Constellation, a fleet of six nanosatellites).
With the help of such satellite data, I explore the interior of young stars by analysing their oscillations. The two examples (listen to the audio files) show how it sounds when you transpose the oscillations of the stars into audible sounds.”
“I am a passionate scientist, but also a professor and teacher with all my heart. It is my desire to give young people the best possible education at university, to involve them in the latest research topics and to give them an excellent start in their own careers. Teaching children and young people about the fascination of the universe and answering curious questions from them is also particularly important to me. Not every one of them has to become an astrophysicist, but if they look up at the sky later in life and see the stars and then realise how fascinating the universe is, that would make me very happy.
As an amateur pianist, I am also very interested in the connection between art and science. I had the special opportunity to write an article for the book "Art::Science", which was published in 2019. For this article, I looked at how art and science are very personal to me: They are both characterised by creativity, inspiration, curiosity and passion. Artists and scientists both tell stories that need an audience. Art and science meet on the level of emotion.
For me, art and science can only exist together.”
“For me, science and art are characterised by creativity, inspiration, curiosity and passion. The common level on which art connects with science is the level of emotion.”
