From Geesthacht to Berlin

BAM Vice President Prof. Dr.-Ing. Norbert Huber. Photo: BAM

Berlin, 19.10.2023. Prof. Dr. Norbert Huber has joined the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) as new vice president in October. Previously, he was director of the Institute of Materials Research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon and at the same time taught as a university professor at the Hamburg University of Technology at the Institute of Materials Physics and Technology. Prof. Huber, who studied mechanical engineering in Karlsruhe and completed his habilitation in 2000 with a thesis on the use of artificial intelligence in materials mechanics, will coordinate BAM's digital transformation across all subject areas and departments as Vice President. In addition, he will continue his teaching activities at TU Hamburg.

"With Prof. Norbert Huber, BAM is strengthening its management team and gaining an excellent expert in the field of materials science and digitalization," says BAM president Prof. Dr. Ulrich Panne.

"BAM is already strategically very well positioned in digitalization topics, for example in the area of eSciences, additive manufacturing or the Digital Quality Infrastructure initiative. I am looking forward to being able to further contribute to advancing this transformation process that has already begun, so that, for example, the use of cloud solutions and digital repositories for research data or also the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning become an established practice and an indispensable part of our scientific work," says the new BAM vice president.

Press release Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM)

"Prof. Huber has had a decisive influence on our center for almost two decades, and on materials research as a whole for as long as three decades: He is one of the world's outstanding pioneers in the field of digitization and AI-based materials research. With his work, he created fundamental insights long before the research activities that are underway in many places today, and he has mapped out many developments that are shaping our current strategies. Furthermore, his immense merits on the part of shaping the Helmholtz research program, his intensive collaborations with, among others, the Technical University of Hamburg, as well as the numerous cooperations with industry during his tenure at Hereon should be emphasized. Many thanks for all these achievements, which deserve the highest recognition! I wish him all the best and continued success in his new role," said Prof. Matthias Rehahn, Scientific and Technical Director of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, on the occasion of Norbert Huber's departure.