Dr. Betty Wutzl, Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology
"Implementing mathematics and physics knowledge to understand brain functions"
A native of Austria, Dr. Betty Wutzl has a rich educational background, including bachelor’s degrees in astronomy and physics from the University of Vienna (UV) and in mathematics in science and technology from Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien). She then continued her studies and received master’s degrees in physics from UV and in applied mathematics from TU Wien. She also completed a university course in medical physics at the Medical University of Vienna. During her Ph.D. studies in technical sciences at TU Wien, she did most of her experiments at the Paracelsus Medical University (PMU) at Salzburg, where she conducted research on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) analysis of comatose patients. Her mathematics background has proven helpful in her research for analyzing data and applying sophisticated techniques, such as machine learning.
Dr. Wutzl has been interested in Asia since her childhood. After a trip to Tokyo in 2013, her interest in Japan grew even stronger, motivating her to begin learning Japanese. One of her teachers introduced her to the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) scholarship, and she thought it was an excellent opportunity to supplement her two-year Ph.D. funding. She contacted Prof. Kenji Leibnitz at the Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), who introduced her to Prof. Masayuki Murata at the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. After obtaining approval from TU Wien and PMU to conduct her Ph.D. research in Japan, Dr. Wutzl came to Osaka in 2017 as a MEXT-sponsored research student at Prof. Murata’s laboratory. After completing her research, she went to TU Wien to defend her dissertation and then returned to Prof. Murata’s laboratory in 2019 as a specially appointed assistant professor.
In her research, Dr. Wutzl currently uses electroencephalograms (EEGs) to analyze general brain functions. Prior, she has also focused on brain network analysis using data obtained via fMRI and other techniques, such as magnetic encephalography (MEG), to understand brain waves and brain functions in healthy humans. Dr. Wutzl enjoys the research infrastructure, funding support, and research atmosphere at Osaka University. In addition to conducting research, Dr. Wutzl also teaches a class on presentation skills to Japanese and international students.
As for Osaka University’s internationalization and diversity efforts, Dr. Wutzl thinks the university is on the right path, although there is still room for improvement. For instance, it would be helpful for international researchers to get more administration-related information in English besides Japanese. She enjoys life in Japan, especially in Osaka, since it has many foreign-friendly communities to make friends with and develop her network. However, she finds it slightly challenging to get used to the Japanese language in daily life, perhaps because many locals hesitate to talk to her in Japanese or prefer to talk in English. She believes that international researchers will find that working and living in Japan is comfortable as long as they keep their expectations realistic.
Text: Clement Angkawidjaja/Edit: Christopher Bubb