New Professors Joining in October Will Advance Research and Teaching at WU

Margaretha Gansterer earned her PhD from the University of Vienna in 2008 with a dissertation on how to integrate simulation and optimization into supply chain management. She subsequently held academic positions at the University of Vienna before being appointed professor of operations management and logistics at the University of Klagenfurt, where she also served as dean of the Faculty of Management, Economics & Law. Her research focuses on production and transport planning, collaborative logistics systems, and last-mile delivery. She develops quantitative methods that make it possible to allocate resources and transport assignments more efficiently. Professor Gansterer is joining WU’s Department of Global Business and Trade.

Marc Jungblut earned his PhD in communication studies from LMU Munich in 2019. Following a research stay at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he held a senior postdoctoral position at LMU Munich’s Institute of Communication Studies and Media Research. His research focuses on political and strategic communication as well as media coverage of wars, crises, and terrorism. His methodological approach combines communication research with computational methods for analyzing large-scale datasets. Professor Jungblut is joining WU’s Department of Business Communication.

Matthias Lukan studied business law at WU, where he earned his habilitation in public law and European law in 2022. After several years of research and teaching at WU, he went on to work at the Austrian Constitutional Court. In 2023, he accepted a professorship in public law at the University of Graz. His research spans administrative, constitutional, and European law, with particular emphasis on the organization of government and public administration, fundamental rights, and specialized areas of administrative law. Professor Lukan is joining WU’s Department of Public Law and Tax Law.

Ursula Lutzky earned her PhD in English linguistics from the University of Vienna, and her subsequent research on language and discourse in business contexts earned her a habilitation at WU. Before joining WU, she held academic appointments at the University of Vienna and Birmingham City University. Her research interests include digital business communication, pragmatics, and applied corpus linguistics. In particular, she examines how organizations communicate with stakeholders through social media, e-commerce platforms, and other digital channels. Ursula Lutzky is now a professor at the Institute for Language and Discourse in Business, part of WU’s Department of Business Communication.

Laura Pavlidis earned her PhD with honors from the University of Vienna in 2017 and completed her habilitation in public law and European law at WU in 2026, with a thesis focusing on constitutional organization and fundamental rights. From 2016 to 2019, she served as a constitutional law clerk at the Austrian Constitutional Court. During the 2023/24 winter semester, she held an interim professorship at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research at WU’s Department of Public Law and Tax Law will focus on constitutional, administrative, and European Union law. In her work, she examines topics including fundamental rights and their adjudication within a multilevel legal system, constitutional court proceedings, EU citizenship, higher education law, governmental choice of regulatory instruments, the functional organization of public administration, and questions of regulation, trust, and integrity in economic contexts and beyond.

Astrid Reichel earned her PhD from the University of Vienna and completed her habilitation in business administration at WU, specializing in human resource management. After serving as a teaching and research associate, assistant professor, and associate professor at WU, she joined the University of Salzburg as a professor of human resource management in 2016. Her research takes a contextualized view of HRM, examining how social and other structures within organizations shape the way people work and the way people are managed. In particular, Reichel investigates the impact of laws and norms concerning technology, gender relations, labor relations, and social sustainability. She is joining WU’s Department of Management.

After studying in Darmstadt, Bristol, and Shanghai, Johannes Schmees obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Osnabrück in 2019. Following academic appointments at the Universities of Vechta and Osnabrück and at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, he went on to serve as associate professor of technical and vocational education and training at the University of Derby and as visiting professor of school and vocational education at TU Berlin. His research focuses on vocational education and training systems and their development, approached from an international comparative perspective. His research interests also include transitions between vocational and academic education and the advancement of vocational education and training theory. Professor Schmees joined WU’s Department of Management in October.