Sigrid Berka has a Staatsexamen in German Literature, Philosophy, and Education from RWTH Aachen (1986), and a PhD in German Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1990). As Assistant Professor of German Studies she taught 19th and 20th century literature and culture courses at Barnard College and Columbia University (1990-1996). Her book Mythos-Theorie und Allegorik bei Botho Strauss came out in 1991. She also co-authored an intermediate text book for German language, Spiralen , has written many articles on German and Austrian Austrian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

As coordinator of the MIT-Germany Program, she started building up this newly launched internship program in 1996 which places about 35 students each year for 3-12 month internships in German companies and research institutes. Within MISTI, the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, she has helped bring the MIT-Italy and the MIT-France Program on their way in their initial stages. She has been teaching Freshman Seminars on comparative literature and culture, has served on MIT’s Fulbright committee and is liaison to the DAAD. Since 2003 she has been serving as the MIT-Germany Program’s Managing Director of Intern Placement and Industrial Relations, responsible for budgeting and reconciling program accounts, for organizing recruiting events and workshops for sponsor companies, and for helping the director in fundraising efforts.