The Center of Excellence at the Universität der Bundeswehr München (Federal Armed Forces University Munich, Germany) is intended to provide academic staff at the university who have retired from active service in their faculty, such as Excellent Emeriti, but also those staff from other universities who want to continue to do research at the Universität der Bundeswehr München with the opportunity and both the administrative and the real space to actively do this.
It was possible to secure the support of four major research figures for the Center of Excellence in the shape of Prof. Ignaz Eisele, Prof. Günter W. Hein, Prof. Ulrich L. Rohde, and Prof. John G. Zabolitzky. Their international visibility and research activity is just as important to the Universität der Bundeswehr München as their formidable reputation. Interest in a joint research project was already expressed in the initial discussions. The idea of focusing a “call for curiosity” on the university and asking for innovative, interdisciplinary and unusual suggestions for topics was very well received.
The Founding Members
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Ignaz Eisele
Ignaz Eisele studied physics at the Technical University of Munich and did his doctorate there to obtain the title of Dr. rer. nat. After spending three years working as a research associate at Kansas University and Wayne State University in the USA, he worked in the research laboratories of Siemens AG before being appointed a professor at the Universität der Bundeswehr München in 1979.
Among other roles, he has been Head of the Institute of Physics, Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, and chairman of the University’s Senate. In 2008, he was appointed an “Excellent Emeritus” of the university. He is currently head of the “Nanomaterials, Devices and Silicon Technology” division at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Microsystems and Solid State Technologies (Fraunhofer EMFT) in Munich. Thanks to Prof. Eisele’s outstanding contacts, the Universität der Bundeswehr München together with the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft has been able to
realize a joint appointment and a professorship that is partly funded by the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. Prof. Eisele was and is a member of various scientific advisory boards and supervisory boards.
His areas of academic interest are silicon semiconductor technology and also components for nanoelectronics and sensor technology. In these areas, over 80 dissertations, more than 200 publications in reviewed journals and numerous patents have been produced. During his time at the Institute of Physics, a state-of-the-art cleanroom was constructed and this enabled some nano-electronic component structures to be produced for the first time.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Günter W. Hein
Günter W. Hein was Head of the Institute of Geodesy and Navigation at the Universität der Bundeswehr München from 1983 to 2008. During this time, Prof. Hein received offers to move to the University of Stuttgart and the University of Karlsruhe, both of which he turned down in favor of remaining at the Universität der Bundeswehr München. Together with his team, Prof. Hein made key contributions to the development of Galileo, the European Satellite Navigation System, in particular in the area of signal development.
In 2008, Prof. Günter Hein moved to take up the role of Head of EGNOS and GNSS Evolution Programme Department at the European Space Agency (ESA) where up until 2014 he was responsible for the technical development of EGNOS and Galileo. Prof. Hein has produced more than 300 scientific and technical publications and supervised more than 50 doctoral candidates. In 2002, he was honored by the US Institute of Navigation with the Kepler Award, which is only presented worldwide once a year, in recognition of “sustained and significant contributions to satellite navigation”, an award which he is so far the only European to hold.
In 2011, Prof. Hein became a Fellow of the US Institute of Navigation and in 2013 the Technical University of Prague presented him with an honorary doctorate (Dr. h.c.). The Universität der Bundeswehr München appointed him an “Excellent Emeritus” at the end of 2015. Prof. Hein has been on the Board of Munich Aerospace e. V. since December 2014 and continues to work as an adviser to the European Space Agency.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dr. h.c. mult. Ulrich L. Rohde
Ulrich L. Rohde, partner of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co, KG, Munich, lives and works in Florida and New Jersey, USA and in Munich.
After studying for a degree in high-frequency communications engineering in Munich, Darmstadt and New York (Columbia University MBA program), he did his doctorate to become a Doctor of Engineering (TU Berlin) and then qualified as a professor with the title Dr.-Ing. habil. (BTU Cottbus). He was initially in charge of the Rohde & Schwarz office in the USA and then became General Manager of RCA Radio Group for Communication and Radio Intelligence for the Ministry of Defense, in the USA, with sales of around $3 billion and roughly 10 000 employees, until GE bought the whole of RCA. He then founded several companies in the field of microwave CAD technology and for developing and manufacturing microwave components. His particular areas of interest are low-noise, highly linear microwave oscillators and also amplifiers and active antennae. In this area, he has published six monographs – most recently in 2016 with McGraw Hill – and in excess of 100 peer-reviewed papers. He is the proprietor of roughly 50 patents. He has been presented with numerous international prizes.
In 2015, he received the prestigious Isaak Rabi Award in the USA,“For intellectual leadership, selection and measurement of resonator structures for implementation in high performance frequency sources, essential to the determination of atomic resonance.” and in 2016 the IEEE MTT Microwave Application Award, “for his significant contributions to the development of low-noise oscillator performance. The Microwave Application Award recognizes an individual, or a team, for an outstanding application of microwave theory and techniques, which has been reduced to practice nominally 10 years before the award.”
Since 1977 Rohde has been Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, and since 1982 he has been Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at George Washington University, Washington DC. In addition to other academic commitments, he is honorary professor at the University of Cottbus, honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich, and honorary senator at the “Universität der Bundeswehr München “. He has been conferred with honorary doctorates from the Universities of Oradea and Klausenburg, and is a member of various scientific advisory boards and supervisory boards.
His hobbies include amateur radio (Dj2LR and N1UL), sailing and photography.
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. John G. Zabolitzky
John G. Zabolitzky studied physics at the Ruhr University in Bochum and he did his doctorate there to obtain the title of Dr. rer. nat. After a one-year post-doc assignment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA, he became Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Ruhr University in Bochum before in 1980 he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cologne. In 1985, he was called to be Professor of Physics and Fellow of the Supercomputer Institute at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.
Since 1987, Prof. Zabolitzky has worked as a manager, founder and managing partner in companies in the electronics industry, in particular in the field of industrial 3D manufacturing metrology using digital image sensors.
His academic field of interest is the application of high-performance computing to assignments in theoretical physics, in particular quantum-mechanical many-particle systems, as well as high-performance data processing for technical applications. In the period up to 1987, he published two books and 66 publications in reviewed journals. Since 2002, Prof. Zabolitzky has been the chairman of Gesellschaft für historische Rechenanlagen e.V., which is dedicated to preserving and operating computers of all sizes from the last 60 years, but in particular also mainframe computers and supercomputers.