Management

Since October 1, 2018, Prof. Dr. Anke Weidenkaff has been head of Fraunhofer IWKS in Hanau and Alzenau. In addition, Anke Weidenkaff is professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Her principal areas of research and expertise are materials science and resource strategies, including the development, synthesis and characterization of sustainable materials for energy conversion and storage. Her current work focuses on regenerative, self-healing materials and the development of next-generation process technologies for fast and efficiently closed material cycles.

Anke Weidenkaff completed her PhD degree in Chemistry at ETH Zürich in 2000, received the Venia Legendi for Solid State Chemistry and Materials Science from the University of Augsburg in 2006 and became section head at Empa as well as associated professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland. She was chair holder for Materials Chemistry and director of the Institute for Materials Science at the University of Stuttgart from 2013-2018, was president of the European Thermoelectric Society (ETS), elected member of the E-MRS Executive Committee and chair of the E-MRS spring meeting 2019.  In 2011, she was awarded with the Kavli Foundation Lectureship prize.

Since 2020, Prof. Dr. Anke Weidenkaff has been a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Environmental Change (WBGU) and since January 2023 a member of the Leopoldina, the German Academy of Natural Scientists.

CV Prof. Dr. Anke Weidenkaff

TU Darmstadt

PD Dr. Emanuel Ionescu has been anounced as Deputy Director of Fraunhofer IWKS in January 2023. He joined Fraunhofer IWKS in November 2021 and is Head of Digitalization of Resources since then. Moreover, Emanuel Ionescu holds a lectureship and is fellow researcher at the Materials and Earth Sciences Department of Technical University of Darmstadt.

His scientific background and interests relate in general to (inorganic) materials synthesis and processing and in particular to the development of advanced ceramics with tailor-made chemical/phase compositions, morphologies, microstructures and property profiles. His current activities address aspects concerning circular economy, process modelling, sustainability assessment as well as digitalization of processes and added value chains.

Emanuel Ionescu studied Chemistry and Physics at the University Bucharest and at Braunschweig University of Technology and received his PhD degree in Inorganic Chemistry in 2005 from the University of Bonn. In 2015, he finished his Habilitation at Darmstadt University of Technology received his venia legendi. From April 2014 to September 2015 has was Deputy Professor for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne.

Emanuel Ionescu is member of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS), European Ceramic Society (ECErS) and German Ceramic Society (DKG), as well as of the German Materials Society (DGM) and German Chemical Society (GdCh). He has been serving since 2018 as Secretary for the Rhein Ceramics Chapter Germany of the American Ceramic Society and since 2019 as an Editor of the Journal of the European Ceramic Society. Moreover, ha has been Associate Editor of the journals Materials Letters and International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology.

In 2022, Emanuel Ionescu has been awarded the Global Star Award of the American Ceramic Society.