Dr. Bettina Heise is the new Head of Administration and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher is Executive Director at the Max Planck Institute Magdeburg

Personnel Annoucement: New Head of Administration and Regular Change of the Executive Director

Dr. Bettina Heise has taken up her position as the new Administrative Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems Magdeburg on January 1, 2023. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher holds the office of Executive Director at the Max Planck Institute Magdeburg for 2023 and 2024. He is appointed on a rotational basis every two years from among the members of the Board of Directors.

Dr. Bettina Heise, 48, heads the administrative department of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems Magdeburg since January 1, 2023, and from now on advises the four-member directorate, in particular the executive director, on budgetary, procurement, and labor law issues. The administrative team currently comprises of a total of ten employees. Dr. Bettina Heise succeeds Marita Hennig, who successfully managed the institute's administrative tasks from its inception in 1998 until the end of 2022. After 24 years of dedicated service to the institute, she has taken her well-deserved retirement.

Dr. Bettina Heise studied business administration at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and most recently worked as a management consultant at Hasomed GmbH Magdeburg.

 

 

Since January 1, 2023, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kai Sundmacher, 57, holds the office of Executive Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems Magdeburg for 2023 and 2024. At the Max Planck Institute in Magdeburg, a new Executive Director is appointed from among the members of the Board of Directors every two years. The Directorate of the Max Planck Institute Magdeburg is composed of four scientific members of the Max Planck Society.

After studying Mechanical and Process Engineering at the University of Hanover and at the Technical University of Clausthal, Kai Sundmacher obtained his doctorate at the TU Clausthal in 1995. Until 1998 he headed the research groups "Reactive Distillation" and "Electrochemical Engineering" at the Institute of Chemical Process Engineering of the TU Clausthal. After a research stay as a Postdoctoral Fellow from 1997 to 1998 at the University of Newcastle in Great Britain, he habilitated at the TU Clausthal in 1998. Since 1998, Kai Sundmacher has been head of the Process Systems Engineering Department at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg. In 1999, he was appointed to the Chair of Process Systems Engineering at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. Since 2001 he has been Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute.

Kai Sundmacher is also the spokesman for the Research Center “Dynamic Systems (CDS): Systems Engineering” at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and the "SmartProSys" research cluster, a Magdeburg-based alliance with the aim of researching scientifically sound methods for developing intelligent process systems for sustainable chemical production and demonstrating the effectiveness of these methods using selected basic and fine chemicals as examples.

Kai Sundmacher's research interests include model-based analysis and synthesis of complex chemical engineering processes, integrated chemical processes, chemical energy conversion, biosystems engineering, and synthetic biosystems.