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News from the Equality Committee of the University of Helsinki:

MAIKKI FRIBERG PRIZE TO EVA ISAKSSON

The 4th Maikki Friberg prize (FIM 25 000) was given on Thursday, April 15th 1999 to M.Sci., Librarian Eva Isaksson.

The rector of the University of Helsinki founded in 1995 an equality prize named after Maikki Friberg. It is given annually for work done to further equality between sexes at the University of Helsinki. This prize is the first equality prize in Finnish universities.

According to regulations, the prize is given to a person or to a group who furthers an approach that is positive for equality at the university, produces new information about equality issues and furthers the practical application of equality in university teaching, research or administration.

Librarian, Ms.Sci. Eva Isaksson is a versatile expert of the information society: a fact writer who has received prizes, an internet expert and activist. For over a decade, Eva Isaksson has done pathbreaking work to publish and to spread information about equality between the sexes, the position of women, women's studies and women scientists, as well at the University of Helsinki as nationally and internationally. From early 1990s on, she has encouraged and trained university women to use the internet and its possibilities for making an impact. She is the creator and maintainer of several Finnish and international web pages and networks that have women's and equality issues as topic. Eva Isaksson has thus helped to create forums of discussion and exchange of information that transgress department, faculty, university and national borders. The materials about Finnish women and women's studies that Isaksson has made available on the internet are respected both nationally and internationally. The bulk of this work has been done as unpaid volunteer work.

Isaksson is a productive fact writer, who has written and edited many books, e.g. the first Finnish language book about women scientists in natural sciences, "Nainen ja Maailmankaikkeus" (Woman and the Universe) in 1988. Eva isaksson has been employed at the University of Helsinki Observatory since 1981 in various temporary positions (research assistant, amanuensis, etc.). She was appointed to the tenured position of a librarian at the Observatory in June 1998.

See also:
Interview in Universitas Helsingiensis 2/1999