New managing director of Fraunhofer ISIT
The executive board of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has appointed Prof Dr Holger Kapels as managing director of the institute. In this position, he succeeds Prof Dr Axel Müller-Groeling, who is moving to the executive board of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Munich.
Prof Dr Holger Kapels will initially take over the management of the institute as an acting managing director until a new institute director for the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology ISIT in Itzehoe is finally appointed by a joint committee of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Kiel University within the framework of a public call for applications. This procedure may take some time.
The step had become necessary because the Senate of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft elected his predecessor Prof Dr Axel Müller-Groeling as executive board member for research infrastructures and digitalization.
“I would like to thank the executive board for its confidence in appointing me as acting provisional director of the institute, and I am looking forward to the task and to good cooperation with my colleagues. I would like to continue the positive development we reached in the last five years and the chosen growth path for ISIT with vigor,” said Prof Kapels about his new assignment.
Prof Kapels has been working at Fraunhofer ISIT since 2014. In recent years, he was head of the Power Electronics Business Unit and deputy institute director. He brings a wide range of experience from industry to his new role. He has worked in research and development for several years, most recently as head of development in an industrial company.
In addition to his activities at Fraunhofer ISIT, Holger Kapels is also professor of semiconductor devices of power electronics at CAU Kiel.
“At ISIT, we have built up an excellent infrastructure in recent years and we have highly qualified colleagues. This means we are well equipped to meet the high demands of industry on our development work,” says Kapels.
Prof. Kapels has a number of plans for the near future. In terms of topics, he would like to make greater use of ISIT’s competencies in order to give decisive impetus to major future topics such as quantum computing and neuromorphic data processing with new ideas, new collaborations and new research results.
He would like to expand the cooperation with the CAU and ensure that ISIT has a strong branch at the CAU. In Itzehoe, it is a matter of completing the establishment of the Research Center for Applied Battery Technology Schleswig-Holstein (FAB-SH). The topics of personnel qualification and further education at ISIT are also particularly close to his heart, and he would like to strengthen the sense of unity among the employees.
