On June 25, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Patrick Mäder was appointed university professor and head of the Group of Data-intensive Systems and Visualization at the Department of Computer Science and Automation. With the establishment of the new department, TU Ilmenau is consolidating and strengthening its profile in the future field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Professor Mäder previously accompanied the junior professor software engineering for safety-critical systems at the TU Ilmenau and is internationally renowned through numerous, often interdisciplinary, collaborations and publications.

After his studies at the TU Ilmenau, he worked as a consultant and software developer in projects of various automotive manufacturers and suppliers. In 2005 Patrick Mäder started his doctoral studies at the TU Ilmenau and worked on the continuous traceability of software developments. He was awarded the Thuringian STIFT Prize for his dissertation.

From 2010, Patrick Mäder conducted research as a Lise Meitner Fellow at the Johannes Kepler University Linz at the Institute of Software Systems Engineering. In 2012, he returned to TU Ilmenau and acquired, processed and coordinated numerous third-party funded projects in the areas of software engineering and machine learning. During this time, he spent various research stays of several months at DePaul University Chicago. Since 2016, he was an assistant professor of the Endowed Chair of Software Engineering for Safety-Critical Systems at the Department of Computer Science and Automation and expanded it to a department with 18 research associates at last count. His research is devoted to topics in secure and reliable software; scalable, multi-modal, and explainable machine learning; and computational biology and ecology. In 2020, he and the project team were awarded the Thuringian Research Prize in the category of applied research for the development of an app-based solution for identifying native plants, "Flora Incognita".

Since April 2021, Dr.-Ing. Patrique Fiedler is junior professor and head of the new Group for Data Analysis in the Life Sciences at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science.

Patrique Fiedler studied electrical engineering and information technology at TU Ilmenau, received his PhD in biomedical sensor and electrode technologies in 2017 and was awarded the TU Ilmenau Dissertation Prize in 2018.

He then moved to industry and held various development, project and product management positions at an internationally active medical technology manufacturer. In addition, he worked several times as a guest researcher at the University of Porto in Portugal and the University of Pescara-Chieti in Italy.

Future research interests of the department include data fusion and analysis of multimodal datasets and body sensor networks, as well as the exploration of novel sensor concepts for biomedical engineering. Another focus will be the development of online-capable analysis methods for hardware-related data processing. Here, real-time and online-capable adaptive analysis methods for time-variant biosignals will be developed with a focus on electrophysiology / neuroscience.

Since 01 March 2021, Dr.-Ing. Florian Puch has been a university professor and head of the Plastics Technology Group at TU Ilmenau. At the same time, he will become the new scientific director at the Thuringian Institute for Textile and Plastics Research (TITK) in Rudolstadt, an affiliated institute of TU Ilmenau. His new research and teaching activities will focus on the functionalization of plastics and the design and realization of novel machine systems for plastics processing. At the Thuringian Innovation Center for Mobility (ThIMo), which is based at the TU Ilmenau, he will be responsible for the key competence area "Plastics Technology and Lightweight Construction".

Florian Puch began his scientific career at the Institute for Plastics Processing in Industry and Trade at RWTH Aachen University. There, he headed the Compounding working group and received his doctorate in 2015 on the topic of "Production and properties of carbon nanotube-polyamide-6 composites". Subsequently, Prof. Puch worked at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen, initially in global research, before assuming functions in technology and marketing in the Construction Chemicals division. Most recently, he worked as Global Launch Manager for the MBCC Group in Mannheim, a supplier of construction chemicals products and solutions that was spun off from BASF. Florian Puch is known in the industry for more than 50 publications, technical presentations at national and international conferences, and patent applications.

Prof. Dr. Doris Heinrich was appointed University Professor and Head of the newly established Group of "Biotechnical Micro- and Nanosystems in Life Sciences" at the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of TU Ilmenau on 1 October 2020. At the same time, the internationally renowned biophysicist took over as the new director of the Institute for Bioprocess and Analytical Measurement Technology (iba) in Heiligenstadt, an affiliated institute of the TU Ilmenau.

Prof. Dr. Doris Heinrich studied physics in Würzburg and at the University of Texas at Austin (USA). After her doctorate at the TU Munich in 2003, further research stations followed at the TU Munich, UCLA (USA) and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, interrupted by a one-year position as a business consultant at the management consultancy McKinsey&Company. Since 2013, she was Associate Professor at Leiden University (The Netherlands) and Research Group Leader at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research (Fraunhofer-ISC) in Würzburg. There she was deputy managing director of the Fraunhofer Project Center for Stem Cell Process Technology from 2019 and additionally head of the Fraunhofer Center "3D Nano Cell".

At TU Ilmenau, Professor Heinrich will expand the spectrum in teaching and research in the field of life sciences with her work on the physics of living cells, in particular the quantitative analysis and control of cell interactions and cell functions, and further promote the successful collaboration between the university and iba.

Dr.-Ing. Stephan Husung has been appointed University Professor and Head of the newly created Product and Systems Engineering Group at the Department of Mechanical Engineering as of 1 January 2021.

Stephan Husung studied mechanical engineering at TU Ilmenau and subsequently worked for several years as a research assistant at the university's Engineering Design Group. After receiving his doctorate in 2012, he taught at the Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences before moving to industry in 2016.

In the international professional world, Prof. Husung is particularly known and very well networked for his work in the field of Model Based Systems Engineering. His publication list includes more than 60 publications from national and international conferences as well as journal articles. In addition, Prof. Husung is involved in various committees, including the VDI - Association of German Engineers for eleven years.

As head of the department, Prof. Husung will focus on the development and use of methods and computer-aided processes in product and system development in cooperation with other groups at the TU Ilmenau and industry.

Dr.-Ing. Jörg Robert has been a university professor an Head of the Group for Dependable Machine-to-Machine Communication at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology since 1 February 2021.

He studied electrical engineering and information technology at TU Ilmenau and TU Braunschweig. From 2006 to 2012, he conducted research on the topic of digital television at the Institute of Communications Engineering at TU Braunschweig. Here he was actively involved in the development of DVB-T2, the second generation of digital terrestrial television. In 2013, he completed his doctorate at the TU Braunschweig on the topic of "Terrestrial TV Broadcast using Multi-Antenna Systems". Already in 2012, he moved to the LIKE chair at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. One of his research focuses there was LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Networks). Here, the smallest sensors can transmit their data over many kilometers with the lowest transmission power. He also led the international standardization of LPWAN within IEEE 802.

Back at the TU Ilmenau, Jörg Robert would like to continue and expand the LPWAN field. One goal, for example, is the development of communication solutions for autonomous sensors integrated into components, e.g. for the automotive industry. Such sensors could monitor these components cost-effectively over their entire service life and enable concepts such as the "Digital Twin".

Since the beginning of the summer semester Jan Lemmen is the new student consul and succeeds Mr. Jan Angerer, who was consul for the previous semester. The student of the Bachelor of Computer and Systems Engineering already brings experience from the student body of the Student Council for Computer Science and Automation to his office.

Jan Lemmen's term of office was and is particularly marked by the pandemic. In combination with the quality management, which is in a state of upheaval, and the revision of all study programmes, there are great challenges. As a link between the university management, the student body and the university and student committees, the consul has the task of ensuring the flow of communication and steering it on the student side. Especially due to the good and constructive cooperation on all levels of the university, this is currently succeeding in the face of the pandemic.

If you have any questions, please contact Jan Lemmen at konsul@tu-ilmenau.de or send a message on Telegram to @KonsulTUI.

On 1 March 2021, Heike Schorcht took up her post as Head of the Presidential Office and will support the President in his work in the future.

Born in Ilmenau, she studied business administration at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and TU Dresden. She gained her first professional experience in research and teaching as well as on university committees as a research assistant and research associate at the Faculty of Economics at the Technische Universität Ilmenau. She received her doctorate there in 2003.

In the same year, she moved to the rector's office and took on the task of advisor to the prorector for education. In this function she has since been involved in a wide variety of topics in the area of study and teaching. In addition to the conversion of diploma courses to Bachelor's/Master's structures within the framework of the Bologna Process, she has accompanied the hitherto innovative system accreditation procedure at the University. Through regular participation in conferences, workshops and further education as well as in a course for lecturers of the ZWM, she has been able to deepen her expertise in these topics as well as in related areas. She will use the diverse experience she has gained for the challenging tasks in her new office.