A career at a gallop: Between international law and the family horse farm

Marlene Anzenberger has learned how to explain difficult research in three minutes. The 24-year-old lawyer at the University of Graz won the university’s Three Minute Thesis competition by presenting her doctoral work on how international legal norms arise to a non-specialist audience.

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I enjoy working in science, and only with that enjoyment can one achieve results.

Her academic record is extensive. She completed her diploma in five semesters, compared with an average of more than 12, and secured a university assistant’s position. Alongside teaching and research, she wrote her dissertation over four years. She also completed an international master’s degree in European Studies at universities in Graz, Leipzig, Vilnius and Granada.

Her current project examines the differences between the annexation and occupation of another state’s territory, using South Ossetia as an example. She aims to finish it by October, before beginning her court year in a few months. The precise location remains uncertain, although she hopes for a position in the Leoben district, near her home.

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The one or other grade of two was included.

That home includes her parents’ farm, where Anzenberger helps care for five horses. She works there on weekends and describes the activity as both a hobby and a way to unwind. She had already worked at another horse farm alongside school as a teenager. The profile presents her as a young researcher balancing legal scholarship, further study and farm life.

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At weekends I am happy to help there; for me, it is a hobby and a way to unwind.