Magdeburg, Germany - Antje Gesa Orths, Germany's first female wind-energy professor, has the wind at her back these days.

Orths, 41, travels the world to push renewable energies - principally wind power - and in late October gave her first lecture at Magdeburg University, where she was recently named an honorary professor.

When time allows, she also holds guest lectures at Stockholm and Copenhagen universities.

The petite, high-powered blonde, who is single and has no children, has made a career of promoting renewable energies worldwide.

"It's a central theme of my life," she said.

That is why in 2005 she moved to Denmark, a world leader in wind power, where she works in the development department of a top Danish power-grid operator.

Orths is not a typical German woman: After graduating from high school in the Westfalian town of Oelde, she began university studies in a field dominated by men.

A lot of people dismissed her chosen subjects - electrical and wind-power installations, and photovoltaics - as "lacking prospects," she recalled.

She faced a lot of head wind at first, she said, but always managed to overcome it: "I was keen on electrical engineering. No one could talk me out of it."

Orths resolutely went her own way. "After finishing my studies in Berlin, I came to Magdeburg, where I was able to gain experience in various places," she said.

She did research at Magdeburg's Stendal Technical College, worked and then earned her doctorate in the field of electrical networks and alternative sources of electrical energy at Magdeburg University.

She subsequently set up a task force at the Magdeburg-based Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation (IFF) and now has more than 50 scientific publications to her credit.

Her love of Magdeburg - and cheese from the nearby Harz mountains - remains strong. "Whenever I'm here, I take a small supply back to Denmark with me," Orths said and laughed.

She has also mastered a tough daily work routine in Scandinavia. "An eight-hour workday isn't enough there," she remarked.

Danes differ from Germans in some respects, she said, explaining that Danes saw technology-mad women as being normal but sometimes gave her strange looks because she was an unmarried career woman with no children.

When Orths is not attending conferences or visiting colleagues all over the world, her favourite pastime is taking walks on the beach. "My rental apartment in Fredericia is just 200 metres from the sea. That's where I clear my head," she said, adding that playing her cello also helped her to relax.

A clear head is what Orths needs for her numerous international projects.

She mainly deals with ways of integrating large amounts of wind energy into electrical networks.

Orths admitted she had a "tendency to be a workaholic." She insisted, however, that "it's all a whole lot of fun for me." (dpa)