Today, February 11, is International Women's Science Day. It is therefore appropriate to shed light on one powerful scientist and introduce a new director of public health and food safety at Matís, Dr. Ásta Heiðrún E. Pétursdóttir.
Ásta Heiðrún graduated as a chemist from the University of Iceland in 2008 and then began a master's degree in collaboration with Matís and the University of Iceland, but the project consisted of researching different chemical forms of arsenic in fishmeal.
Ásta Heiðrún began her doctoral studies at the University of Aberdeen in the autumn of 2010 and graduated in early 2014. Ásta quickly showed talent in the field of research and information dissemination. She has received various grants to attend conferences and events around the world. Ásta's research during her doctoral studies became a collection of 6 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters that were published during her studies and 3 articles that were published following her doctoral dissertation. Ásta's research was primarily concerned with developing methods for the analysis of different chemical forms of arsenic.
In recent years, Ásta has, for example, led a European research project aimed at examining the methane emissions of cows after algae feeding, and she is also in charge of strengthening safety in Matís' working environment.
Ásta is a powerful scientist and very advanced in the field of chemical analysis, but her work has not only had an academic impact but also on regulations and their implementation, in addition to which the research results have been disseminated to a very wide group and thus reached scientists, stakeholders and the public. Ásta's interest in research is constantly shifting to the field of climate change, which is one of the biggest challenges facing the world.