Change of leadership at IMI

The anniversary event and the book "20 Years of IMI" in October 2023 have impressively shown that Prof. Jivka Ovtcharova has significantly shaped the history of IMI as Institute Director since the early 2000s. With her research and teaching in the fields of Virtual Engineering and Product Lifecycle Management, followed by Digital Twins, Smart Immersive Environments and Artificial Intelligence, she has set measurable impulses beyond the research community in the economy. The Lifecycle Engineering Solutions Center (LESC), which she founded and heads, the Industry 4.0 Collaboration Lab (I4.0 Lab) and the Center for Artificial Intelligence Talents (CAIT) have set new standards for modern, practice-oriented engineering education.

At the turn of the year, the management of the institute was handed over to Prof. Anne Meyer. She has held the Chair of "Data Science in Mechanical Engineering" at IMI since September 2023. Prior to this, she worked at TU Dortmund University for five years, first as a junior professor and then as a professor for "Digitalization in Corporate Logistics and Supply Chain Management". For her, data science means providing methods that can be used to make good decisions based on data - either by humans or by machines. The selection and appropriate combination of data science methods, depending on the task, objective and available data, is the central focus of her research here at the institute.

Prof. Jivka Ovtcharova will take over the project management of the RegioMORE lighthouse project and will continue to support the institute with her experience and broad network in research and business.