Vorstand

Ursula M. Costa, PhD, MA 📧

President

Ursula M. Costa, PhD, MA is one of the enthusiastic pioneers Occupational Science in Austria. She works as a professor in the fields of Health Science/Public Health and Occupational Science. She is head of the Institute for Innovation, Sustainability and Transformation in Health Care and Social Systems (InnTra) and of the master's programmes in Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science at the Health University of Applied Sciences Tyrol.

As an interdisciplinary research discipline, Occupational Science is for her a future-promising, fascinating field, that contributes to insights and knowledge related to humans’ doing and human as active agents.

Ursula Costa

Hannes Außermaier, MSc 📧

Vice President

Hannes Außermaier works as an occupational therapist in his own private practice and teaches full-time at IMC Krems. He is part of the ethics board of the Austrian Occupational Therapy Association. For him, Occupational Science means combining theory, practice and social issues, living plurality and acting politically.

Assoz. Prof. (FH) Larisa Baciu, MSc 📧

Secretary

Larisa Baciu has been an occupational therapist since 2008. She works as an Associate Professor at IMC Krems, specializing in communication, interprofessional collaboration, and the application of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) in her teaching. Her research concentrates on the occupational balance of informal caregivers of persons with stroke and the scientifically grounded development of an interprofessional course for students from various healthcare professions. Occupational Science principles underpin her work.

Karin Lettner-Hauser, MHPE 📧

Assistent Secretary

Karin Lettner-Hauser, MHPE has been an occupational therapist since 1997. She is a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences for Health Professions Upper Austria at the Bachelor's programme in occupational therapy and working as occupational therapist in her own private practice, where she is specialised in working with children and adolescents. In her professional career, she has always been interested in combining theory and practice. For her, Occupational Science is an important foundation for making relations between theory and practice comprehensible, explainable and visible.

Linda Jungwirth-John, MSc 📧

Treasurer

Linda Jungwirth-John has been working as an occupational therapist in the field of psychiatry and mental health since 2013. She has been a lecturer and researcher at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences since 2022, where she contributes with her expertise in Occupational Science, psychiatry and psychosocial health as well as in theoretical and conceptual foundations of Occupational Therapy. She is fascinated by the diversity of what people do every day and how this affects health and well-being as well as participation. She finds it as enriching to look at the interactions of people and groups in a social and political context from the interdisciplinary perspective of occupational science.

Malena Teufelhart, MSc 📧

Assistant Treasurer

Malena Teufelhart is an occupational therapist and works with children and their families. She has been a Junior Research Scientist at IMC Krems since 2024, where she works in an interdisciplinary team on several scientific projects. For her, Occupational Science means looking at human occupations in the context of social, political and economic conditions and shaping occupational opportunities more justly – both in practice and in research.

Barbara Bachmann, BSc 📧

Media & Public Relations

Barbara Bachmann works as an occupational therapist in the field of psychiatric rehabilitation. Since September 2023, she is also a student of the Master's programme in Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science at the Health University of Applied Sciences Tyrol. For her, Occupational Science means scientifically analysing the diversity of human occupation and their impact from an interdisciplinary perspective. In her day-to-day practice, it is particularly important to her to identify environmental barriers for occupational capability (as the ability to act) and to create awareness on this regard in the interdisciplinary team.

Mag. iur. Ingrid Vogl, BSc 📧

Assistant Media & Public Relations

Ingrid Vogl works as head of therapy in a neurological rehabilitation centre in Upper Austria and is a qualified lawyer. She works as a freelance occupational therapist, mainly with neurological and paediatric clients. Putting the active, autonomous person at the centre is one of her essential concerns.