Members of the Board of Trustees of the Fraunhofer IST

Dr. Philipp Lichtenauer holds a PhD in economics from the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, prior to which he studied economics and economic and social history in Strasbourg, Freiburg and Hamburg. Initially, he worked as a manager for a globally active Dutch technology group in various line functions and was responsible for, amongst other activities, the establishment and development of the Internet business. He subsequently moved to medium-sized companies as a managing partner, is the founder and main shareholder of an internationally operating technology company for the application of atmospheric pressure plasmas, and is also the proprietor of an agency for Angel Investments. Furthermore, as an active entrepreneur, Dr. Lichtenauer shares his knowledge and experience in the development of entrepreneurial skills, in the transformation process from knowledge source to entrepreneur as well as in the course of spin-offs and innovations of disruptive technologies from the fields of process engineering, IT, and mechanical engineering.

Peter Awakowicz studied electrical engineering/electrophysics at RWTH Aachen University and the TU Munich from 1978 – 1984. He subsequently obtained his doctorate in the field of plasma physics at the TU Munich and habilitated in the field of plasma technology at the TU Munich in 1998. In 2003, he accepted the chair for Allgemeine Elektrotechnik und Plasmatechnik (general electrical engineering and plasma technology, AEPT) at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). Two company foundations took place between 2002 and 2008. From 2006 – 2008, Prof. Awakowicz was Vice Rector for research and transfer at the RUB. From 2012 to 2014, he was Dean of the Fakultät Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik (faculty of electrical engineering and information technology) at the RUB. Since 2010, he has been the spokesman for the Transregio SFB-TR 87 as a cooperation between the RUB and RWTH. Research fields encompass low-pressure and atmospheric pressure plasmas in thermal non-equilibrium for application in film deposition (PECVD, PVD), gas conversion and purification, sterilization and wound healing. In total, he is involved in more than 100 patents. To date, he has had 462 scientific publications and has an H-index of 38 (Google Scholar).

Dr. Thomas Bartkiewicz completed his medical studies in Göttingen. After passing his exams in 1997, he worked as a trainee physician in the department for performance auditing and requirement planning at the state office of the Schleswig-Holstein Medical Service. This was followed by postgraduate studies in health economics at the Fachhochschule Lübeck, sponsored by LBK Hamburg and Dräger Medizintechnik. From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Bartkiewicz worked for the Dräger and Hanse company health insurance fund as head of the “Contract and Supply Management” department. Since 2004, he has been a consultant to the Medical Director, Prof. Dr. H. Kierdorf, of the Städtisches Klinikum Braunschweig (Braunschweig Municipal Hospital). As project manager, he bore significant responsibility for the establishment and implementation of the first medical care center at the Städtisches Klinikum Braunschweig gGmbH. Since 2011, Dr. Bartkiewicz has been Medical Director of the medical care center at Klinikum Braunschweig gGmbH and, since 2013, has held a teaching position at the Technische Universität Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School (MHH) at the Peter L. Reichertz Institut für Medizinische Informatik (institute for medical informatics). With the departure of the medical director in 2015, Dr. Bartkiewicz was elected as successor as the first full-time medical director and is a member of the operational management of Klinikum Braunschweig. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fraunhofer IST.

After training as a male nurse, Frank Benner spent several years in intensive care medicine and finally worked in the cardiac surgery intensive care unit at Rhön-Klinikum. In 1989, he switched to surface technology. After a pre-term final apprenticeship exam, he passed the master's certificate as an electroplater and metal grinder two years later. He then worked as managing director and responsible for surfaces and coating systems worldwide for a group of companies in the automotive supply industry. In 2006, he moved to Ruhl & Co GmbH in Wetzlar, now B+T Oberflächentechnik, where he became managing partner. This was followed by the founding of the B+T group of companies with the integration of B+T Oberflächentechnik, which received the ”Wachstumschampion 2017” (engl. growth champions) award and is one of the 500 most successful companies in Germany.

Claudia M. Buhl studied political science (she graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Potsdam) and is a recognized expert on the development of urban and rural areas, on regions which are structurally strong, structurally weak or undergoing structural change, and on cluster policy, cluster-policy measures and cluster development. Since 2007, she has been employed by VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH in Berlin, where she has been deputy head of the “Demography, Clusters and Foresight“ department since 2020. Simultaneously, she is also responsible for the group “Regional Development and Cooperation Models”. Her work focuses on strategic consulting for representatives from politics, business and science in the context of cluster and regional development as well as the implementation of municipal and regional strategy and transformation processes.

Dr. Marko Gernuks received his doctorate from the Technical University of Darmstadt on the subject of environmental impact assessment. Since 2000, he has held various positions at Volkswagen with a focus on sustainability and the environment. His particular focus topics are life cycle assessment, strategic raw materials and circular economy. Since 2021, he has been Volkswagen's representative on the board of the Open Hybrid LabFactory, a BMBF-funded public-private partnership for circular economy technologies.

After completing an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer, Uwe Heydenreich studied physics from 1988 to 1993 at the TU Dresden and at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, thereby specializing in electron and surface physics. His professional career began in sales and distribution, after which he worked in the semiconductor industry as a process engineer for PVD and CVD. Following further positions in research & development, plant management of PV thin-film production, and executive and business-unit management at vacuum-coating equipment manufacturers, he is currently active as a key account manager at Trumpf Hüttinger. He has amassed profound expertise in the field of thin-film technologies for the semiconductor industry, optics, photovoltaics, wear protection, electronics and process power supply. Since 2016, he has been Chairman of the Board of the European Society of Thin Films and, in 2023, he was elected as an expert by the national expert network PLASMA GERMANY.

Tim Hosenfeldt is Senior Vice President at Schaeffler AG and is responsible for the Schaeffler Group's Research & Innovation Center and Corporate Competence Center Central Technologies. He studied production technology at the University of Bremen and subsequently worked as a research engineer at the Leibniz Institut für Werkstofforientierte Technologien, Bremen in the field of materials science and surface technologies. After receiving his doctorate in engineering from the University of Bremen in 2000, he joined the Schaeffler Group, where he expanded the coating and surface technology activities from research through to worldwide production and managed these as Vice President Surface Technology. He is an honorary professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg for tribology and surface technology and is involved in an honorary capacity as, amongst other functions, a research advisor to the Research Association for Automotive Technology FAT, on the DIHK committee “Industry and Research”, and on the VDMA committee “Research and Innovation”.

Dr. Sebastian Huster has headed the Department of Engineering Sciences, Informatics & Knowledge Transfer at the Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur (Lower Saxony ministry of science and culture) since 2014. Prior to that, he worked in science management at the universities of Karlsruhe and Hannover. Dr. Huster completed his studies in sociology and philosophy at Bielefeld University with extended stays abroad in England and Italy. After his studies, he completed his doctorate at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences in the field of political science research on Europe.

Professor Dr. Angela Ittel has been President of the Technische Universität Braunschweig since July 1, 2021. From 2008 - 2021, Angela Ittel held the professorship for ”Educational Psychology” at the TU Berlin. She was full-time Vice President of the Technische Universität Berlin from 2014 to 2021, initially responsible for the departments of International Affairs and Teacher Education. Since 2018, she has been responsible for the areas of Strategic Development, Young Talent and Teacher Education. There, she implemented significant ideas and projects for internationalization and the promotion of young academics, and was an active companion of the TU Berlin on its way to becoming a university of excellence within the Berlin University Alliance. 

Michael is a Process Engineer graduated 2006 from Clausthal University of Technology with a PhD in Particle Technology. He started his industrial career at Novartis Pharma AG in the Technical R&D department developing formulations and processes from pre-clinical to late development stage with quite a few commercialized processes. Michael moved 2022 to F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG in the Synthetic Molecules Technical Development department continuing in applied industrial sciences to develop drug products. Michael also lectures at the Technical University Braunschweig, from where he received an Honorary Professorship in 2020. He is an active member of ProcessNet and APV organizations. He publishes actively in the field of particle and pharmaceutical technology with a current H-Index of 12 (Google Scholar).

Prof. Dr. Simone Kauffeld has been holding the Chair of Industrial/Organizational and Social Psychology at the Technische Universität Braunschweig since 2007. In her research, she addresses the topics of competence development and management, teams and leadership, career/coaching, and organizational change and publishes in international and national journals. From 2012 to 2018, Simone Kauffeld was a member of the Executive Board of the TU Braunschweig, responsible for issues related to teaching. In order to actively ensure a transfer of knowledge, she founded Prof. Dr. KAUFFELD & LORENZO (4 A-SIDE GmbH) together with G. Lorenzo in 2008 to profitably combine psychological expertise with IT competence for companies. In 2019 and 2021 S. Kauffeld was awarded as one of the 40 leading HR minds.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Kleine Jäger is Vice President, Solids Formulation and Handling at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen. In this role, he leads the global R&D activities in the field of solids and coatings processing, ranging from the development of new process technologies, optimization of processes and products to trouble shooting and debottlenecking in BASF's global production facilities. The relevant BASF products his organization is working on range from catalysts and battery materials to detergents, superabsorbents and complex polymers – the corresponding applications include BASF's internal production of solids, but also future R&D topics such as recycling technologies e.g. of battery materials, new concepts for hydrogen synthesis technologies and the integration of smart digital tools into solids processing. He is a chemical engineer with a diploma and a PhD from RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He also habilitated at RWTH Aachen University in 2004. Since 2011 he has held a professorship as apl. Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. at RWTH Aachen University. He has also been teaching at the TUHH since 2018.

Cordula Miosga has been Managing Director at the Arbeitgeberverband Region Braunschweig (AGV) since 2000 and is responsible for the Human Resources Management & Recruiting division. The AGV is an association of more than 1000 companies in the Braunschweig – Wolfsburg region. Its main focus is on providing consulting services to companies in all areas of HR management & employer branding.

After studying physics in Heidelberg (2005 to 2010), Dr. Wolfgang Müssel received his doctorate in 2014 for a thesis in the field of experimental quantum physics. Following subsequent work as a postdoctoral researcher, he held various positions at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) from 2015 to 2021, initially in the specialist department and subsequently in the office of the Board of Management. Since 2021, Dr. Müssel has occupied the position of consultant at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, where, in Unit 514 “Quantum Technologies; Quantum Computing”, he is responsible for various topics in the field of photonics and quantum technologies. Since 2023, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fraunhofer IST.

Dr.-Ing. Stefan Rinck studied mechanical engineering, majoring in production technology, at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen. Within the framework of joint industrial research, he worked there on the development of hydraulic systems and also completed his doctorate on this subject. In 1992, Dr. Rinck joined Mannesmann Rexroth AG. In 1999, he was appointed to the executive board. In 2001, Dr. Rinck was appointed Business Manager Technology of Bosch Rexroth AG for the business unit Mobile Hydraulics. In 2003, he joined Linde AG, Wiesbaden, as Spokesman of the Management Board of Linde Material Handling and Division Board Member of Linde AG, where he led the global forklift activities. In September 2009, Dr. Stefan Rinck became a member of the Executive Board of SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG and has been the company's Chief Executive Officer since 2010. Stefan Rinck is also a member of the Main Executive Board of the VDMA and Chairman of the Committee for Research and Innovation.

Born in Wuppertal, Germany, Dr. Schulz studied mechanical engineering and aeronautics at the RWTH Aachen university and, after graduating, moved to the university’s renowned Laboratory for Machine Tools and Industrial Management. After receiving his doctorate in 1988, Dr. Schulz joined Aesculap in Tuttlingen, Germany, where he was responsible for work preparation, plant and investment planning. This was followed by several years in England as head of the production facilities there. Since the mid-1990s, his area of responsibility has expanded from production in Tuttlingen to include the worldwide Aesculap manufacturing network. In March 2008, Dr. Schulz was appointed as a member of the Executive Board of Aesculap AG, responsible for Production, Strategic Purchasing & Supply Chain Management, and Logistics. In April 2017, he was appointed Chairman of the Executive Board of Aesculap AG. In addition to his activities at Aesculap AG, he has been 1^st Chairman of the Schwarzwald-Hegau district group of the Südwestmetall employers’ association since 2009, and since 2021 also a member of the Select Committee of the Verband der Metall- und Elektroindustrie Baden-Württemberg e. V. (association of the metal and electronics industry in Baden-Württemberg). From 2011 to 2016, Dr. Schulz represented the industry members in the renowned International Academy for Production Engineering CIRP (Collège International pour la Recherche en Productique) as “Chairman Corporate Members”.

Dr. Jutta Trube has served as Head of the VDMA Photovoltaic Production Equipment Department since December 2015, focusing in particular on production equipment for solar-cell and module manufacturing. In this position at the VDMA, she is responsible for the annual updating and publication of the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV). She also serves as Deputy Managing Director of the VDMA trade association Electronics, Micro and New Production Technologies (EMINT). Prior to joining the VDMA, she served as Director of Research and Development and Director of New Technologies in vacuum-equipment manufacturing. Markets included photovoltaics, architectural glass as an energy-saving element, storage technology, display technology, and other fields. Dr. Trube studied physics at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and obtained a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Technische Universität in Berlin, Germany.

Dr. Kai U. Ziegler has been Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of EagleBurgmann, a Freudenberg Business Group, since 2018, where he is responsible for engineering/R&D, purchasing, production and quality. Before joining EagleBurgmann, he was CTO at Voith Turbo. Prior to that, Dr. Ziegler held various management positions at MAN Diesel & Turbo (now MAN Energy Solutions), most recently as Vice President Engineering Compressors. He started his industrial career as a development engineer and project manager at MTU Aero Engines in Munich. Dr. Ziegler studied mechanical engineering and received his diploma from RWTH Aachen University, where he subsequently earned his doctorate in the field of centrifugal compressors at the Institute of Jet Propulsion and Turbo Machinery.