OUS Researcher Awards 2026 - ceremony June 12th Excellent researcher awards to Kristina Hauge, Ida Lindeman and Nicola Pietro Montaldo

The awards are distributed annually in order to honour excellent scientific work. The awarding process is organized by the hospital's research committee, while an external Scientific Advisory Board has evaluated the candidates. 

Three Oslo University Hospital scientists received prestigous awards for their outstanding research on June 6th.

The major prize - the "Excellent Researcher Award" - went to Kristina Haugaa.

Ida Lindeman and Nicola Pietro Montaldo both received the "Early Career Award".

The prize money - 400.000 and 200.000 NOK respectively - is earmarked for research activities.

The awards are distributed annually in order to honour excellent scientific work. The awarding process is organized by the hospital's research committee, while an external Scientific Advisory Board has evaluated the candidates. 

About this year's award winners:

Excellent Researcher Award

Kristina Haugaa:

Kristina Haugaa is leader of the Cardiogenetics and sudden cardiac death research group at the the Department of Cardiology, Division of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Diseases and Head of ProCardio – Center for Research-Driven Innovation. Haugaa is also Professor II at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo.

Committee statement:

Kristina Haugaa is an internationally leading cardiologist and researcher in the fields of cardiogenetics, cardiac imaging, sports cardiology, and sudden cardiac death. With a strong clinical foundation and a highly productive academic career, she has established herself as a global authority on inherited cardiac diseases and arrhythmias. Her research over the past decade has been published in highly ranked journals and has had substantial impact on both clinical practice and international guidelines.
A hallmark of Professor Haugaa’s work is her ability to translate advanced imaging and genetic insights into clinically actionable knowledge. Her group was the first to demonstrate that strenuous physical activity may increase the risk of adverse outcomes in individuals with genetic susceptibility to heart disease, directly influencing European and American recommendations for sports participation in these patients. She has also made major contributions to understanding cardiovascular risk in pregnancy among women with heart disease, work that led to her appointment as Chair of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines on cardiovascular disease in pregnancy (2025). In addition, she has co-authored ESC guidelines on valvular disease, ventricular arrhythmias, and cardiomyopathies .
Professor Haugaa’s scientific output is exceptional, with over 370 publications, including more than 230 original articles. Her work spans mechanistic studies, clinical cohorts, and large international collaborations, and includes key contributions to defining arrhythmic risk in cardiomyopathies and mitral valve prolapse. Notably, she also holds a patented ultrasound-based method for predicting sudden cardiac death risk, now implemented in clinical imaging platforms, exemplifying her commitment to innovation and clinical translation.
Beyond her individual achievements, Professor Haugaa has made outstanding contributions to strengthening the research environment at Oslo University Hospital (OUH). She leads a large and highly productive research group in cardiogenetics and sudden cardiac death, having supervised 23 PhD students to completion, many of whom now hold senior positions at OUH. She is also the Centre Director of ProCardio – Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI), a major nationally funded initiative fostering collaboration between academia and industry, with over 100 affiliated members and a strong record of innovation and translational research.
Her leadership extends internationally through extensive collaborations with leading institutions across Europe and the United States, as well as major roles within the European Society of Cardiology. Through these efforts, she has significantly enhanced the international visibility and reputation of OUH as a center of excellence in cardiovascular research.
In summary, Professor Kristina Haugaa combines scientific excellence, clinical impact, innovation, and outstanding leadership. Her contributions have advanced the understanding and management of life-threatening cardiac diseases and have had a direct and lasting influence on patient care. She is an exceptionally strong candidate for the Excellent Researcher Award at OUH.

Early Career Awards:

Ida Lindeman

Ida Lindeman is a postdoctoral fellow in the Functional Immunogenetics research group at the Department of Immunology, Division of Laboratory Medicine.

Committe statement:

Dr Ida Lindeman (35 years old) obtained her Bachelor degree in 2013, Master’s degree in 2015, and PhD in 2020, all from the University of Oslo. During her training, she gained substantial international experience, including six months at the University of Bologna, one year at the University of California, San Francisco, and 20 months at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge. Following her PhD, she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Professor Ludvig Sollid at Oslo University Hospital.
Dr Lindeman has authored 11 original research articles, one review and two book chapters. She is first author on seven publications and last author on one, with several papers published in high-impact journals. She has also co-supervised a PhD student.
Dr Lindeman has made important contributions to the understanding of adaptive immunity, particularly in HLA-associated diseases. She has characterized immunoglobulin gene polymorphisms and their relation to celiac disease. Importantly, she developed the widely used software tool, BraCeR, enabling reconstruction of B-cell receptor sequences from single cell RNA-sequencing data. Using this approach, she has provided key insights into celiac disease-specific plasma cells and autoreactive pre-plasma cells in celiac disease. She continues to investigate B-cell and T-cell receptor polymorphisms and their role in disease susceptibility.
Taken together, Dr Lindeman’s work demonstrates scientific originality, strong methodological expertise, and clear translational relevance. She is a highly deserving candidate for an Early Career Award.

Nicola Pietro Montaldo

Nicola Pietro Montaldo is a researcher and leader of the Mitonuclear DNA Maintenance and Transcriptional Control project group at the Department of Microbiology, Division for Laboratory Medicine, Oslo University Hospital and at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo.

Committe statement:

Dr Nicola Montaldo (39 years old) holds a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Cagliari and obtained his PhD in Cancer Biology from the University of Zürich in 2018. He subsequently completed postdoctoral training at the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim (NTNU) from 2019 to 2021. He is currently based at the Department of Microbiology, Oslo University Hospital, in the group of Professor Hilde Loge Nilsen, where he is currently establishing himself as an independent group leader.
Dr Montaldo has published 15 original articles, many in highly ranked scientific journals, and has an additional five manuscripts under revision or in preparation. He has successfully secured competitive funding as principal investigator from several prestigious sources, including the Norwegian Cancer Society, the Michael J Fox foundation, SPARK innovation Norway, the Norwegian Parkinson Research Fund and the Research Council of Norway. He has also supervised one PhD student to completion.
Dr Montaldo’s research focuses on DNA repair mechnanism in cancer and neurodegeneration. During his PhD, he made a significant discovery linking base excision repair to transcription elongation. More recently, he has investigated the consequences of DNA glycosylase loss on brain development and behaviour in mouse models, as well as its impact on mitochondrial dynamics. He has developed novel genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 based strategies to identify regulatory factors of the DNA damage response and has identified early DNA repair and stress response signatures in prodromal Parkinson’s disease using gene expression data from blood cells.
By combining strong experimental expertise with clinically relevant questions, Dr Montaldo is well positioned to contribute to the identification of therapeutic targets. His work is of high scientific quality and translational importance, making him a valuable asset for Oslo University Hospital and a strong candidate for an Early Career Award.

Link:

News article from the main home page of Oslo University Hospital, where the award winners answer questions about their current research and how their findings may be of benefit for patients (in Norwegian):

Priser til fremragende forskere ved Oslo universitetssykehus 2026 (from www.oslo-universitetssykehus.no)

Previous award winners:
(click on year to read more)