Steering Group

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernd Valeske is executive director of Fraunhofer IZFP (Saarbrücken – Germany) and holds the chair for cognitive sensor systems at the Saarland University in the department of systems engineering. His scientific focus is in research for smart sensor and data systems and in developments for tailored sensing and monitoring of materials, products and production processes with almost 20 years of experience in NDE (Nondestructive Evaluation). He is chairman of the NDE4.0 expert group of the German Society for Nondestructive Testing (DGZfP). His recent research has been concerned with applications for circular materials and circular economy.

Uwe Clausen successfully completed his degree in computer science at the University of Karlsruhe in 1989. In 1995, he completed his doctorate in engineering at the University of Dortmund. From 1989 to 1995, he worked as a research assistant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics in Dortmund. In 1992, he became head of the transport logistics department before moving to Deutsche Post AG in 1995 as logistics project manager. In 1997, he was appointed Managing Director of the subsidiary IPP Paketförderung GmbH in Austria.

From 1999 to 2001, as Operations Director of Amazon.de, he was responsible for setting up the first distribution center in Bad Hersfeld and became European Operations Director at Amazon.com in 2000.

Since February 2001, he has been Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics in Dortmund and of the Institute for Transport Logistics in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Dortmund. From 2002 to 2005, he was Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at TU Dortmund University. As Chairman of the Fraunhofer Transport Alliance, Prof. Clausen headed it from 2003 to 2024 and has been a member of the Transport Alliance Steering Committee since 2025.

Prof. Clausen is a member of the scientific advisory board of the German Logistics Association (BVL) and the advisory board of the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV). He has also represented Fraunhofer in the European Conference of Transport Research Institutes (ECTRI) since 2005 (of which he was a member of the board from 2013 - 2016).

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Peter Liggesmeyer is the Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE in Kaiserslautern and holds the chair of Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU). From 2014 to 2017, he managed the affairs of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI e.V., German Informatics Society) as its President. He is the scientific spokesperson of the “Research Council Industrie 4.0”, In 2022, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the “Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians GDNAE” as the representative for mathematics/computer science. The “Feldafinger Kreis” welcomed him as a member in 2022. In 2023, he received the “German Award for Software Quality” for his research work.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Tobias Melz is Managing Director of Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF and Head of the Department of »System Reliability, Adaptive Structures and Machine Acoustics« at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Since 1989 he studied mechanical engineering at TU Braunschweig with focus on lightweight construction and aerospace technology, he worked as a research assistant and project manager at the German Aerospace Center DLR in Braunschweig. Development of smart structures for vibration and shape control in lightweight aerospace systems was his scientific focus. In 2002 he received his doctorate at the TU Darmstadt under Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Hanselka and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rainer Nordmann. His work addressed active vibration reduction of cooling systems in a satellite system. His research interests include the functionalization, mechatronization and reliability of mechanical engineering systems as well as sustainable lightweight plastic construction.

From 2001 to 2012 he led the Department for »Reliability of Active Systems« and later the competence centers »Mechatronics | Adaptronics« and »AdRIA«. In 2011 he was appointed to a professorship for »Adaptive Structures« at the Department of »System Reliability and Machine Acoustics« at the Technical University of Darmstadt, in 2012 he was appointed duty for the new Division for »Smart Structures« and overtook a role as deputy Director of Fraunhofer LBF. After Holger Hanselka left Darmstadt, Tobias Melz accepted responsibility as provisional manager of Fraunhofer LBF and the associated Department at TU Darmstadt until he got appointed for both positions in 2016.

Tobias Melz is actively involved in various committees, is an IGF expert, since 2011 Chairman of the Board of the »Kompetenznetz Adaptronik e.V.« and as chairman of »Materials Valley e.V.«, he is committed to materials research in Hesse and beyond together with »Technologieland Hessen« and well-known companies and research institutions in the Rhein-Main-region. He holds various positions within Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and has been member of the steering committee of Fraunhofer Transport Alliance since 2014.

Fraunhofer LBF has broad expertise along the value chain: from materials and processing to the design and implementation of structural systems, to qualification with regard to safety and reliability. The three research Divisions »Reliability«, »Smart Structures« and »Plastics« deal with the service areas »Reliability Design«, »Digital Engineering«, »Smart Solutions«, »Circular Economy«, »Lightweight Design« and »Future Mobility« and organize, among other things, the conferences »InCeight Casting C8«, »4SMARTS« and the »Forum Plastic Recyclates«. Together with Fraunhofer IWKS, Fraunhofer LBF is responsible for the Hessian performance center »GreenMat4H2 – GreenMaterials for Hydrogen«, which aims to develop material solutions for the hydrogen economy and ensure the reliability of hydrogen-charged systems.

The Professor of Artificial Intelligence has been Head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems in Dresden since June 2024. 

Sanaz Mostaghim received her doctorate from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics (EIM) at Paderborn University in 2004. In 2004, she joined the Computational Laboratory (CoLab) of the Department of Computational Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and moved to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in 2006, where she completed her habilitation in Applied Computer Science in 2012. In 2014, the DFG honored Prof. Mostaghim with the DFG Heisenberg Professorship for Intelligent Adaptive Systems. 

She has been a university professor and Chair of Computational Intelligence at the Faculty of Computer Science at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (OVGU) since 2014. Her research focuses in particular on multi-criteria optimization and decision-making algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, collective intelligence and swarm robotics.  

Prof. Mostaghim is involved in numerous scientific and innovation policy bodies and committees. She was Vice President of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (2020-2024), and is a member of the Digital Council of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Digital Affairs of Saxony-Anhalt.