Division Manager, Max Planck Digital Labs, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften, München
Sandra Vengadasalam leads the department Digital Labs of the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) in Munich, which serves a community of 14,000 scientists across 84 Max Planck Institutes worldwide. The mission of Digital Labs is to ensure a constant pipeline of new technologies to provide innovative and sustainable services for all Max Planck researchers. Blockchain technology and specifically innovative services for academia based on blockchain technology, is a passion for Sandra and her team. Furthermore, Sandra is one of the founders of the Max Planck Open Access Ambassadors initiative – a network of young PhD students disseminating the principles of Open Access and Open Sciencebetween young scientists. Before MPDL, Sandra obtained her PhD in biology focusing on molecular biology and biochemistry. After her doctorate she worked as PostDoc in the field of Epigenetics and Chromatin Remodeling at the Adolf-Butenandt-Institute in Munich. In her spare time, she was the chairperson of the Youth Symphony Orchestra in Munich and still plays violin and harp.