Two women lead The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Two women are at the forefront of promoting science in society as President Annelin Eriksen from Bergen and General Secretary Marit Westergaard from Tromsø step into the new leadership roles at The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo (DNVA). Both have been elected for the period 2025-2028.

International Experience
Professor Annelin Eriksen (born 1972) is one of the youngest presidents in the Academy’s history as the social anthropologist takes on the leadership role at DNVA.

General Secretary Marit Westergaard (born 1956) is a professor of linguistics at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. Westergaard has extensive experience as a research leader for projects and centres and has built a world-leading research environment in language acquisition and multilingualism with over 40 active researchers.

About Annelin Eriksen
Eriksen has leadership experience as Vice-Rector at the University of Bergen (2018–2021) and Pro-Dean (2012–2016). She is currently leading a Fripro project from the Norwegian Research Council: Human Futures: A Study of Technoscientific Immortality. She is well known for her popular science book The Immortal Human (2023), based on her research in technology development, biotechnology, and AI.

About Marit Westergaard
Westergaard has researched multilingualism, both in the learning process and from a life-course perspective. She has developed two theoretical models and is the author of numerous publications on a wide range of topics within language acquisition, multilingualism, and historical language changes.

Westergaard has studied at the University of Oslo, University of Bergen, and UiT, as well as at UC San Diego. She comes from Tromsø, where she has spent most of her academic career.

Photos: Thomas B. Eckhoff for DNVA