Effective April 1, 2022, Prof. Katharina Hölzle becomes the director of Institute of Human Factors and Technology Management (IAT) at the University of Stuttgart and joins the management of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO. She succeeds Prof. Dieter Spath, who retired in October 2021.
Digital technologies are the basis for a profound transformation of industry and society. The Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO and its partner institute, the Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management IAT at the University of Stuttgart, are helping to shape this transformation in a positive way. As a renowned professor for IT entrepreneurship at the Hasso Plattner Institute of the University of Potsdam, deputy chair of the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (EFI) and former member of the German government's High-Tech Forum (HTF), Katharina Hölzle brings both scientific expertise and the practical orientation to strategic technology and innovation management. These characteristics will help her to actively shape and drive this transformation in her new role as institute director.
The best of both worlds: university teaching and practical research
As an industrial engineer, Prof. Katharina Hölzle first worked industry-side at Infineon Technologies, Cap Gemini and an American start-up company. In 2008, she obtained her doctorate at TU Berlin, where she became a junior professor and earned her habilitation in 2011. From 2011 to 2019, she held the Chair of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Potsdam. Afterwards, she moved to the Hasso Plattner Institute/Digital Engineering Faculty of the University of Potsdam in November 2019, where she took over the IT Entrepreneurship research group. Her function as a member of the German government's High-Tech Forum then provided her with contact to the Fraunhofer world.
In addition to research and transfer, another focus of the IAT is university education in engineering and technology management. Professor Hölzle has successfully taught all aspects of entrepreneurship, innovation and technology management at the Bachelor, Master and Executive level at national and international universities. She has received several awards for her teaching and is looking forward to establishing innovative teaching formats in teaching at the University of Stuttgart.
"The future of ergonomics and technology management will be characterized by a new understanding of technology and work. We need to find answers to the questions of what role technologies play in scientific, social and economic contexts, what work between humans and machines will look like in the future, and what skills are needed for this. As the new director of the IAT and the ILO, I am looking forward to working together with students and researchers to find the answers to these questions through research, education and practical work. As an outstanding location for European research, the University of Stuttgart offers extraordinarily exciting transdisciplinary cooperation opportunities, and I look forward to helping shape research and teaching at the University of Stuttgart in an international, innovative, and interdisciplinary way," says Prof. Hölzle
| Contact | Professorin Katharina Hölzle, Director of IAT University of Stuttgart and Fraunhofer IAO, phone.: +49 711 9702025, e-mail |
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