Board Of Members

In 1998, IGAFA became a non-profit registered association (e. V.) under German civil law.
Its Board of Members was elected in September 2021. Election period 2022 to 2024:

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Panne (Chairman)

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Panne has been the president of BAM since 2013. He studied chemistry at the University of Dortmund and at University College London and received his Ph.D. and habilitation at the Technical University of Munich. Professor Panne has been working at BAM since 2004, where he initially headed the department of Analytical Chemistry; Reference Materials. In addition to his presidency at BAM, he is honorary professor of Instrumental Analytical Chemistry at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU). He is also spokesman for the Working Group Departmental Research and chairman of the Joint Initiative of Non-University Research Institutes in Adlershof (IGAFA).

Professor Panne is co-initiator and spokesman for the HU Graduate School of Analytical Sciences Adlershof (SALSA). In 2009, the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (German Chemical Society, GDCh) awarded him the Fresenius Prize for his achievements in analytical chemistry.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Bickermann (treasurer)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Bickermann studied Materials Science at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and received his doctorate in 2002 on the preparation of SiC crystals for semiconductor applications. After that he engaged in the growth and characterization of AlN crystals as substrates for UV optoelectronics. Since 2011, he is professor at the TU Berlin and department head at the Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung. His domain is the growth of oxide, fluoride, and nitride single crystals.

Prof. Dr. Jan Lüning

Since May 2022 Prof. Dr. Jan Lüning heads the HZB Institute for Electronic Structure Dynamics. From 2019 to 2022 he has been responsible for “Matter” as scientific manager of HZB. Before moving to HZB, Jan Lüning was a professor at the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris and a scientific advisor at the synchrotron SOLEIL. Before that, he worked in the USA at the synchrotron in Stanford and for the IBM Almaden Research Center. The solid state physicist is an internationally recognized expert in research with synchrotron radiation, and has been instrumental in promoting the development of new methods.

Prof. Dr. Mathias Richter  

Mathias Richter, born in 1959 in Marburg, studied physics in his home town from 1978 and graduated later from Hamburg University. Since his diploma thesis carried out in 1983/84 at the Hamburger Synchrotronstrahlungslabor (HASYLAB) of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), the application of synchrotron radiation has represented the central theme of his scientific work.
At the beginning of his career, emphasis was laid on atomic physics. Hamburg (Ph.D. in 1988), Paris (Postdoc in 1989/90) and Berlin (since September 1990) have been the significant stages.
In 1996, he was awarded the German professorship qualification at Berlin Technical University. After that, he concentrated on metrology using synchrotron radiation at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany’s national metrology institute. Responsible for UV and VUV radiometry since 1997, he has from then on also undertaken applied research in the PTB laboratories at the electron storage rings BESSY I (till 1999) and BESSY II (since 2000). Richter is Head of PTB’s Division 7 “Temperature and Synchrotron Radiation” and adjunct professor at the Technische Universiträt Berlin.

Prof. Dr. Ingolf V. Hertel (IGAFA Honorary Chairman)

The list of his merits is long. Grew up in Dresden and Freiburg, he devoted himself early into physics. As scientist, science-manager and -politician Prof. Ingolf V. Hertel made an enourmos contribution on reordering the science-landscape after the fall of the wall. He is considered as a pioneer in building up the Science- and Technology Park Adlershof, probably the most successful development-project at the new federal states. His academic career leads him via Mainz, Kaiserslautern, Berlin and Freiburg again back to Berlin. From 2010 on he works – already retired – at the ProMINT college of the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, first as Heraeus-Senior-Professor, then as a Senior Advisor and since 2018 as Honorary Professor.

Up to 2009 Prof. Hertel was chairman of IGAFA and today he is their honorary chairman. Since 1997 he is member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. From 1998 to 2000 he was undersecretary for science and research, Senate administration for Science, research and culture of the state of Berlin. In 2004 he was awarded with the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of merit) 1^st class. Since 2018 Prof. Hertel is Honorary Member of the Magnus-Haus Berlin of the German-Physical-Society and got the Needle of Honor of the German-Physical-Society.