The two most prestigious Swiss scientific awards, the Marcel Benoist and Latsis prizes, were awarded on November 3, 2022, during a joint ceremony held at the Bern Town Hall.
Professor Dr. Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger receives the 2022 Swiss Latsis Scientific Prize
The assistant professor in public law and digitization at the University of Zurich is being honored for her impressive interdisciplinary research work.
The CHF 100,000 Latsis Swiss Science Prize, which is awarded to young researchers up to the age of 40, goes this year to Kerstin Noëlle Voknger. The assistant professor of public law and digitalisation at the University of Zurich is talented in many fields. She holds a doctorate in both law and medicine.
In her research activities in the fields of law, medicine and technology, Professor Vokinger has wide-ranging professional interaction and applies interdisciplinary methodological approaches that are currently unique in Switzerland. She combines traditional legal and medical analyses with empirical data evaluations and also draws on expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger has thus developed a distinctive research profile within a very short time. The topics she deals with are of considerable relevance to science and society, such as the pricing of medicines for cancer treatment, personalised medicine and the regulation of innovative technologies; the issues that Professor Vokinger addresses are of relevance to the public authorities, international organisations, industry and to legislation in the fields of medicine and technology. Vokinger is delighted to have been awarded the Latsis Prize: “The prize is an unexpected and great honour for me and my research team. I am very grateful to the Latsis Foundation and the SNSF for this award. It motivates us in our efforts to develop solutions that improve society’s access to medicine and innovative technologies.”
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) was responsible for the scientific selection of the award winners on behalf of the Marcel Benoist and Latsis Foundations. The Swiss science prizes will be awarded at the Bern Town Hall on 3 November 2022. Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, chair of the Marcel Benoist Foundation, and Professor Denis Duboule, chair of the Latsis Foundation, will present the awards. Federal Councillor Parmelin states: “We are extremely pleased that Ursula Keller and Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger are being awarded the 2022 Swiss science prizes. They are outstanding scientists and exemplify the excellence of Switzerland as a research location.”
2022 prizewinner: Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger
Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger was born in Zurich in 1988 and studied law and human medicine in parallel at the University of Zurich (UZH). She then passed the bar exam of the Canton of Zurich and the medical state examination. In 2016, she completed her PhD in biomedical ethics and law at the UZH before obtaining a PhD in medicine from the University of Basel the following year. Vokinger also has an LL.M. from Harvard University Law School and has conducted research at Harvard Medical School. She wrote her habilitation thesis at the UZH Faculty of Medicine and since 2019 has been a professor in the UZH Faculty of Law. Vokinger is also an affiliated faculty member at Harvard Medical School. During her career, she has received research grants from Harvard Law School, Cancer Research Switzerland and the SNSF.
The Swiss Science Latsis Prize (previously the National Latsis Prize) has been awarded annually since 1983 by the SNSF on behalf of the Latsis Foundation, which was founded in 1975. The prize honours young researchers aged up to 40 at Swiss universities for outstanding work. The prizewinners are chosen in a selection procedure run by the SNSF. The 2022 prize is awarded in the field of humanities and social sciences.
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