About

Her Story

While the organisation itself is still in its early stages, Papillon Pathways builds on the extensive experience of its founder.
Michaela Th. Mayrhofer was trained as a political scientist, historian, and sociologist in Vienna, Louvain-la-Neuve, Essex, and Paris. Over the course of her academic career, she has held various positions and conducted research at institutions such as the Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé et Société, the University of Vienna, the Institute of Technology, the Technical University of Vienna, the Fondation Brocher, or the Medical University of Graz.

She has also held research fellowships at the Institut für Technik- und Wissenschaftsforschung at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt and the University of Newcastle. Between 2013 and 2017, she served as a member of the editorial board of the Austrian Journal of Political Science and currently acts as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Genetics.

For more than a decade, she contributed to the development and implementation of BBMRI-ERIC, where – most notably  – she served as Interim Director General in 2020 and as Head of ELSI Services & Research from 2019 to 2024. During her tenure, the ELSI department comprised  nine specialists and a network of nearly 40 experts across more than 20 Member States and was involved in over 20 research projects, for several of which she served as Work Package Lead.

Prior to her departure, she secured the EU project PERIFORMANCE (GA 101216808), acting as coordinator for BBMRI-ERIC. Most recently, she has been affiliated with the Medical University of Innsbruck and Human Genome Austria.

In addition, she serves on scientific and ethical advisory boards and acts as an ethics advisor. Her primary interests lie in the governance of the life sciences and medical ethics, particularly within the policy field of health research, and in their embeddedness in historical, cultural, and social contexts.