Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Licentiate of Philosophy, kamarineuvos (Finnish honorary title) Erkki Fredrikson
Erkki Fredrikson is an influential figure in the field of culture from Jyväskylä who has had an impressive career and cooperated closely with the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ for decades. The valuable map and art collection of the Eero and Erkki Fredrikson Foundation, created as a result of his great efforts and expertise, is now part of the collections of the University. Known as a strong presence in the cultural sector, Fredrikson holds numerous positions of trust in the city of Jyväskylä.
Fredrikson has a successful track record in the research of Finnish history, particularly in the field of cartography. Fredrikson has also published six monographs on the history of Jyväskylä. He has worked in various positions at the Museum of Central Finland during his career.
Doctor of Theology Jussi Nuorteva
Jussi Nuorteva has been Director General of the National Archives of Finland from 2003 to 2022. As a researcher of book history as well as the history of science, he has developed education and research in archiving and material management, especially the digital management of archives, with the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥.
Nuorteva has had several domestic and international positions of trust and specialist duties, the latest examples being long-term membership in Finland’s UNESCO committee and serving as a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Memory of the World programme. Jussi Nuorteva is the chair of the Heraldry Society of Finland and the Chancellor of the Order of the White Rose of Finland and the Order of the Lion of Finland.
Professor emerita Marta Szebehely
Marta Szebehely from Stockholm University has been a leading Nordic long-term care researcher for decades and has influenced the development of the research field on the global level. She has led several research programmes related, for example, to increasing inequalities and marketisation of care for older people. Szebehely retired in 2020 but remains an active researcher and leads, among others, a network of working life studies in care work.
Professor Szebehely has cooperated closely with the researchers of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ for two decades. She is a member of the international academic advisory group of the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care, which is funded by the Academy of Finland and coordinated by the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. She has received several awards, including the highly prestigious Sohlberg Prize in 2021, awarded to a leading researcher of ageing in the Nordic countries.
Faculty of Information Technology
Entrepreneur Matti Häll
Matti Häll is an entrepreneur who studied mathematics and business economics at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ and succeeded in modifying the competence he accrued during his studies into successful software business. He has recruited a notable number of experts from the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥, especially from the Faculty of Information Technology. At the same time, he has significantly increased the vitality of Central Finland with his work. Häll’s business activities have received several national and international special recognitions.
Matti Häll considers high-quality education essential for securing the vitality of Central Finland. For this reason, in 2020 he donated four million euros to the master’s degree education in engineering at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. This is the largest donation ever from a private person to a Finnish university.
Professor Michael D. Myers
Michael D. Myers is Professor of Information Systems at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Professor Myers is one of the leading researchers of information systems. His research focuses especially on digital transformation, digital natives and the impact of information technology on the transformation of organisations, qualitative research methods in information systems and reasons for the success and failure of information system projects. During his career, Professor Myers has had several internationally significant positions of trust. He is Editor-in-Chief for European Journal of Information Systems and Editor of the AISWorld section on qualitative research.
Professor Myers has had close research and teaching cooperation with the Faculty of Information Technology for over a decade. Research cooperation with Myers has particularly focused on understanding value co-creation and co-destruction in the development and use of digital services.
Jyväskylä School of Business and Economics
Professor emerita Jean Helms Mills
Jean Helms Mills from Canada is an internationally distinguished and decorated researcher of management. She has been a professor and lecturer in many universities and conferences, for example, in Europe, Australia and Canada.
In her research, Professor Helms Mills has focused on critical management studies, diversity in management, and the sociology of knowledge. She is co-editor of the journal Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management and a member of the editorial boards of various scholarly journals on management.
As a part-time professor at the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics (2012–14 and 2018–21), Professor emerita Helms Mills has significantly contributed to international cooperation in teaching and research, especially as a mentor for doctoral students. Helms Mills has also cooperated closely with Finnish researchers in the field of critical management studies and several Finnish universities.
CEO, kauppaneuvos (Finnish honorary title) Antti Määttä
Antti Määttä is an alumni of the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. After completing his master’s degree, he supplemented his studies at Stanford Graduate School of Business in California and the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Määttä has had a long career in the service of the S Group. Currently he works as CEO of the Osuuskauppa Keskimaa cooperative and in various positions of trust in the governing bodies of SOK (the Central Finnish Cooperative Society) and elsewhere.
During his studies, Määttä was active in the student politics of Jyväskylä. He served as the chair of Pörssi, the subject association of business and economics, and in different positions of trust in the Student Union of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. After his studies, Määttä has had several positions of trust and memberships in different organs of the University community. From 2014 to 2017, he operated as the vice chair of the University Board. From 2010, he has been a member of the board of the Jyväskylä University Foundation and the chair of the board from 2020.
Faculty of Education and Psychology
Professor emeritus Frederick J. Morrison
Frederick J. Morrison, Professor (emeritus) of the University of Michigan, has analysed in his pioneering studies the interaction of both individual and environmental factors in the development of children’s early reading skills, self-regulation and other skills, especially at the beginning of education. In his multidisciplinary research, he has used the methods of developmental psychology, education and brain research.
Professor Morrison has led large-scale longitudinal studies and interventions concerning, for example, the development of teaching practices. He has also held significant national positions of trust and served on review panels in the United States.
Morrison has visited the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ several times. He has supported the faculty’s research on learning and teaching and helped in adapting the assessment method of classroom interaction and teaching practices for use in Finland.
Professor Kathy Sylva
Research Fellow and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oxford, Kathy Sylva is one of the most internationally known researchers of the effectiveness of early childhood education and preschool education and the importance of the social environment. She has led several significant longitudinal studies and interventions in the UK and internationally. She has visited the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ several times and worked closely with our researchers, for example, in the FP7 CARE project funded by the European Union, which studied the quality of early childhood education in Europe.
Together with researchers from Jyväskylä, Professor Sylva has influenced the management of the SIG network for early childhood learning and the development of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI).
Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences
Head Coach Jukka Jalonen
Jukka Jalonen graduated from the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, majoring in sport pedagogy. In his position as a head coach, he has shown how it is possible to apply sport pedagogy to top-level sports and make a team of individuals strive and achieve something that cannot be reached only by gathering top individuals together.
As the long-term head coach of the Finnish men’s national ice hockey team, Jalonen has repeatedly proven how important it is to let everyone on the team play using their own strengths while heading for a common goal. The latest proof of this approach was the gold medal in ice hockey in the 2022 Winter Olympics. This gold medal was Finland’s first ever Olympic gold in traditional team sports.
In his work, Jukka Jalonen has systematically implemented value leadership that emphasises cooperation and enjoying the journey. In his public activities, he has brought up the University’s expertise in sport and health sciences.
Professor emerita Marja Jylhä
Marja Jylhä has worked for the University of Tampere as a professor of gerontology and health science (2004–2021) and as a vice rector (1998–2004). She is internationally recognised especially as a leader of long follow-up studies. Professor Jylhä works actively on behalf of science policy and as an influential participant in societal discussion. In the media, she has brought up the societal consequences of ageing and written about them in many forums receiving a number of awards for her work.
For years, Jylhä has engaged in close and strategically important cooperation with the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. She was a representative of the University of Tampere when the joint Gerontology Research Center (GEREC) of the universities of Tampere and Jyväskylä was established. Marja Jylhä and GEREC participate in the operations of the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care led by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Professor Marja Jylhä leads one of its four research themes.
Mayor of Jyväskylä Timo Koivisto
Timo Koivisto was elected Mayor of Jyväskylä in 2015 after being a deputy mayor for ten years. Physical activity is close to Koivisto’s heart. He has systematically promoted Jyväskylä’s position as the sports capital of Finland and highlighted research in sports and health sciences at the University. Under his leadership, Jyväskylä has developed into a modern, international and student-friendly city, in which the urban structure supports an active lifestyle, wellbeing and a lively social life. Mayor Timo Koivisto is one of the most important partners of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥.
Faculty of Mathematics and Science
Professor Jens K. Nørskov
Jens K.Nørskov is an internationally renowned and awarded professor of theoretical physics at the Technical University of Denmark and the chair of the Danish National Research Foundation.
Professor Nørskov is a leading expert in computational catalysis. The theoretical and computer-based methods he has developed have transformed computational and experimental research in catalysts and materials and deepened our understanding of catalysis chemistry. The rationalisation concepts and indicators Professor Nørskov has created for catalysis chemistry and solid materials are utilised in large-scale computational screening tests and material development. The research group of Professor Jens K. Nørskov has also carried out valuable development work of simulation tools.
Professor Philip Patrick Power
Internationally renowned and awarded Professor Philip Patrick Power has been Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis since 1981. He currently holds the highest campus-level faculty title of Distinguished Professor.
Professor Power is widely considered a leading figure in inorganic and organometallic chemistry. He has studied particularly the low-coordinate and low-valent compounds of main group and transition metal elements and their chemical reactions. His research results have modified our understanding of the bonding of atoms to molecules and how the created bonds behave in chemical reactions.
Professor Power has strong research ties with chemists at the Department of Chemistry and he has provided supervision, mentoring and researcher exchange for young researchers of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. The collaboration has greatly facilitated the establishment of organometallic synthetic laboratories in Jyväskylä, transitioning the Department of Chemistry to the forefront of inorganic chemistry research.
Master of Science in Technology Aimo Wirén
Aimo Wirén, Master of Science in Technology, is a pioneer of Finnish data transfer development. He comes originally from Korpilahti.
Wirén has actively monitored the development of science and the growth of the university of his childhood home region to a significant research university. Wirén’s interest in science and personal acquaintanceships with researchers have led to long-term support of the natural sciences at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥. He wants to create a research environment for young ambitious researchers, so that they can achieve their scientific goals especially in the field of biosphere research. Wirén values research in which researchers help nature to help itself.
