Scientific Program
Keynote Presentations
Prof. Dr. med. Oskar Jenni
Oskar Jenni leitet seit 2005 die Abteilung Entwicklungspädiatrie am Universitäts-Kinderspital Zürich; der Kinder- und Jugendmediziner ist zudem Extraordinarius für Entwicklungspädiatrie an der Universität Zürich. Zu seinen Forschungsgebieten zählen u.a. das Schlafverhalten im Kindesalter sowie die motorische, kognitive und soziale Entwicklung von gesunden und kranken Kindern. Seit 2018 ist Oskar Jenni außerdem Leiter der Akademie für das Kind an der Zürcher Falkenstrasse. In dieser Funktion engagiert er sich für mehr gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz und Wertschätzung der Verschiedenartigkeit von Kindern. Grundlegend ist dabei seine Überzeugung, dass jedes Kind mit seinen individuellen Fähigkeiten eine wichtige, bereichernde Ressource für die Gesellschaft ist.
Univ.-Prof. Dr.Dr. Lieselotte Ahnert
Lieselotte Ahnert received one PhD from Humboldt-University Berlin and the second one from Friedrich-Schiller-University at Jena in Germany. She was head of the research group on Early Socialization at the Institute for Child and Adolescent Health in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin wall. When this Institute was dissolved, she made it possible to continue her research by founding and chairing the Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Research on Socialization (1991-2001). She has been affiliated with the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Washington/USA) since 1996, where she also collaborated with Michael Lamb. Her research is concerned with interaction and attachment patterns in infancy, early social and emotional development in different contexts, including home and child care centers, children’s stress reactivity and early social cognition. Her research has been repeatedly published in the highest ranked journals of the field (Child Development and Developmental Psychology). In “recognition of the sustained outstanding contribution to the science of psychology” she became 2011 Fellow of the American Psychological Society. From 1993-2008, her research has been numerously awarded by the German Research foundation (in sum ca. 2.5 Mio), and by the Jacobs foundation (in sum ca. 3.5 Mio). LAH also worked for the German Family Ministry carrying out large studies on developmental issues on public child care (0.5 Mio), and provided expert reports for the present politics. Her books on theoretical issues of child development (printed by Springer Press), on human attachment (MIT Press and Reinhardt Publisher), and child development in the context of public child care (Springer Publisher Group) are highly recognized. At University of Vienna, LAH started also keeping alive the Vienna heritage of Charlotte Buehler who systematically generated research on Developmental Psychology during 1923 to 1938. After retirement and a prolongation of the Vienna contract of three additional years, she was appointed for corporate member at Free University of Berlin where she now lives, teaches and continues with her research.
Prof. Dr. Daniel Schechter
Daniel Schechter currently is Medical Director of the Perinatal and Early Childhood Training and Research Program and Co-Director of "PAPILLON," a specialized canton-wide ambulatory care program for children ages 0-5 at the University Service of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). He is Associate Professor of Psychiatry (in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) in the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of Lausanne University and Adjunct Associate Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine (USA). He is also on faculty at the University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine (Switzerland) where he continues to work as co-leader of the Stress and Developmental Psychopathology Work-Package of the National Center for Competence in Research on the Synaptic Basis of Mental Disorders (NCCR-SYNAPSY) which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Schechter had previously served as Deputy Chief of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Service and Chief of the Pediatric Consult-Liaison Unit at Geneva University Hospitals. Prior to his work in Geneva that began in 2008, Dr. Schechter was Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry (in Pediatrics) at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York (USA) where he also did his medical studies, adult, child and adolescent psychiatry training, as well as his research and psychoanalytic training and directed the Infant-Family Service at the Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Schechter is the author of numerous peer-reviewed research and clinical publications and is the recipient of multiple international prizes for both his research and clinical papers. He is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where he also has served as an appointed member of the Infancy and Preschool Committee since 1999.