Associate Professor, Medical Specialist and PhD Maiken Stilling from the Department of Clinical Medicine today – 11 October 2018 – receives the Jens Christian Skou Award. But who is she, the faculty's promising research talent? Get an idea of who she is in the video and mini portrait below..

2018.10.11 | Sabina Bjerre Hansen (tekst) og Simon Byrial Fischel (video)

Vice-dean for Research, Ole Steen Nielsen, together with Jens Christian Skou's widow Ellen-Margrethe Skou, presents the faculty's talent award to Maiken Stilling at an event in the AIAS building. Photo: Melissa Yildirim/AU.

Maiken Stilling’s family background is solidly planted in Jutland. She is modest and calm. But don’t be fooled. She believes in himself – and with good reason. The new award winner is an internationally recognised elite researcher who also manages a full-time goal-orientated and ambitious clinical career. She is able to naturally juggle the combination of clinical practice and research with an impressive energy level.

"I’ve just returned from a holiday in Washington and would like to quote former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Theodore Roosevelt: ‘Believe you can, and you’re half way there’. I think this is very important to bear in mind – also in science. Because if you want to make a career for yourself, you have to believe in yourself, your ideas and your ability," said the 2018 award winner and continued:

"But you can't do it alone. So I want to say a big thank you to all my believers! Thank you for your support and trust in me and my abilities," said Maiken Stilling to her supervisor Kjeld Søballe and her colleagues and family, after she received the award.

From workshop to operating theatre
"I've always been a bit of a tomboy, who often hung out in the workshop and, for example, liked to use a hammer. Which actually fits really well with orthopaedic surgery, where you’re also doing something practical and using your hands. And, well, that turned into a career in hand surgery," says Maiken Stilling about her path into that area of medical science.

Both her clinical work and her research are dedicated to all kinds of unstable joints and arthritic joints. And her passions are RSA research and roentgen stereophotogrammetric analysis.

Maiken Stilling is an example of how clinical practice and research can go hand in hand.

"One thing we can learn from this year's award recipient is that a clinical career is not incompatible with a research career. But it requires hard work. Maiken is involved in more than one hundred ongoing research projects, has more than sixty scientific publications, and has been on many research and study trips all over the world. She has developed new software, new techniques and new methods that are already being used abroad, and she is also an excellent surgeon. Congratulations Maiken, you've really earned it," said Vice-dean Ole Steen Nielsen.

The goal is to help patients
Maiken Stilling and her fellow researchers are currently working on a number of projects within stereo roentgen. Both classic RSA projects based on randomised controlled clinical studies and innovative studies focusing on Dynamic RSA as a new diagnostic method.

Through her new approach to orthopaedic surgery diagnostics, her goal is to improve the treatment of those patients who are afflicted by e.g. ligament injuries, rheumatoid arthritis and other problems with their joints. It is new and groundbreaking – also internationally. And with the Jens Christian Skou Award and the DKK 100,000, Maiken Stilling and her research team are now one step closer to that goal.

Read more about Maiken Stilling and the Jens Christian Skou Award in the article "Clinician with unique research talent receives the Skou award 2018".