Gloria Benedikt is a graduate of the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy, the English National Ballet School, and of Harvard University. In 2015 she joined the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) to investigate how partnerships between scientists and artists can support the transformation toward sustainability. She is the lead author of Science and Art for Life’s Sake (2020). In 2021 she was Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), where she explored how we can harness the power of collective experience through the performing arts to support societal transformation. She is an independent consultant to the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP). 

She performed as a dancer across Europe and the US for twenty years and gave her farewell performance in July 2022. She has directed over a dozen multimedia performances so far and presented her work at high-level conferences and universities, such as the UN SDSN International Conference on Sustainable Development, the European Parliament, the UNESCO Forum, the World Science Forum, the European Culture Forum and Harvard University, and theaters and festivals including the Kennedy Center Washington, Carnegie Hall, and the Bridging Europe Festival. Teaching assignments include the Mellon Summer School for Performance Research at Harvard University, the School for Modern Diplomacy co-organized by the United Nations University and the Diplomatic Academy Vienna, and the IIASA Young Scientists Program. 

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