Dr. Michaela Th. Mayrhofer is a political scientist and historian by training. She was educated in Vienna, Louvain-la-Neuve, Essex and Paris. Her academic career led her to various positions and stays at the Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé et Société, the University of Vienna, the Institute of Technology and Society Studies at the Alpen-Adria- Universität Klagenfurt/Vienna/Graz, the Technical University of Vienna, the Fondation Brocher and the Medical University of Graz.
She retained a Research Fellowship at the Institut für Technik-und Wissenschaftsforschung at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt as well as at the University of Newcastle; in addition, she is a former member of the editorial staff of the Austrian Journal of Political Science (2013-2017). Since 2018, she leads the Code of Conduct for Health Research initiative, which aims at developing a code along Article 40 of the EU GDPR, considering the specific features of processing personal data in the area of health.
She has been working for BBMRI-ERIC since 2013, where she served as Co-Interim Director General (Feb-Aug 2020) and continues her activities as Head of ELSI Services and Research since 2019. In the latter capacity she spearheads a multidisciplinary team of legal, bioethics and social science experts providing know-how in more than 20 active research projects.