Director

Professor Dr. Matthias Petzold has been Acting Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS since October 1, 2019. He studied physics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Halle (Saale) and received his doctorate in 1987. After his work at the university and two years in the ceramics industry, in 1991 he moved to the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials in Halle, the predecessor institute of the Fraunhofer IMWS.

Since its foundation in 1992 as a field office, he made a significant contribution to the setting up and the successful scientific and economic development of the Institute through his diverse activities in material research and diagnostics of microelectronics components, the strength and reliability of silicon microsystems and the study of reaction mechanisms of dental products.

From 2003 to 2010, Matthias Petzold was Deputy Head of the Institute Branch, then Deputy Head of the Institute. From 2008 until his appointment as Director of the Institute, he headed the business unit “Components of Microelectronics and Microsystems Engineering.” In 2007 he was appointed Honorary Professor for Microsystems Technology at the Merseburg University of Applied Sciences. Matthias Petzold is the author and co-author of more than 100 publications in magazines and conference proceedings and has given various talks as a guest of international conferences. He also works as a reviewer for various international trade magazines.

Dr.-Ing. Sylvia Schattauer has been Deputy Head of the Fraunhofer IMWS since October 1, 2019. On behalf of the Executive Board, she is primarily responsible for the spin-off of the business unit “Chemical Conversion Processes” into a separate Fraunhofer Institute. Previously, she was Deputy Head of the “Materials/Life Sciences” department in the Executive Board office of the Fraunhofer Headquarters in the Research Division of the Department of the President. This also included overall responsibility for research coordination in the “Materials” division.

Schattauer studied electrical engineering with a focus on environmental technology/regenerative energies in Berlin and earned her doctorate in experimental physics at the University of Potsdam. As a postdoc she worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Potsdam, on the development of fuel cell systems at Heliocentris Energy Solutions AG in Berlin, and as a research associate at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in the field of solar cell material recovery. She has been a staff member of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft since 2011.

Thomas Merkel studied law at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and at the University of Zurich with a focus on business law. Following his second state examination, Mr. Merkel worked as Legal Counsel in the legal department of Credit Suisse in Frankfurt am Main. There, Mr. Merkel was mainly involved with issues of employment, banking, corporate and commercial law. Mr. Merkel was admitted to the bar in September 2004 and additionally to the bar as an in-house lawyer in 2016.

In July 2007, Mr. Merkel joined the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft as a consultant to the Institute's management for human resources and law at the present Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS. Since January 2009, he has been head of administration for the Fraunhofer IMWS and thus responsible for the individual areas of finance, human resources, technical services and IT as well as for the area of law and compliance. Within the institute management, Mr. Merkel takes over the administrative tasks of the IMWS and represents the institute director in these areas, among other things as an interface to the central administration of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. On a higher level, Mr. Merkel is involved in committees of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.