On 3 July, the fluid mechanics researcher at Technische Universität Ilmenau, Professor Jörg Schumacher, was elected to the Senate of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the largest research funding organisation and central self-governing organisation of science and the humanities in Germany. As one of three new Senate members, including two in the engineering sciences, he will be responsible for the Department of Process Engineering / Fluid Mechanics for the next three years. A further eight members of the Senate were elected by the General Assembly of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for a second term of office at the DFG's annual meeting in Potsdam. Prof. Jörg Schumacher's term of office will begin on 1 January 2025.
The Senate is the central scientific body in which all matters of essential importance to the DFG are discussed and decided on, unless they are reserved for the Joint Committee as the principal decision-making body. The Senate has a total of 39 members; the latter are also the Scientific Members of the Joint Committee.
Jörg Schumacher has been Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the Institute of Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics at TU Ilmenau since 2008. He has headed the department of the same name since 2013 and has been a member of the university's Academic Senate since 2017. In the past, the scientist has not only played a leading role in DFG projects, including as spokesperson for the second phase of the DFG-funded Research Training Group 1567 "Lorentz Force" and as coordinator of the DFG Priority Program 1881: Turbulent Superstructures. Since 2020, he has also been involved as a DFG review board member in the Fluid Mechanics Expert Forum and as a reviewer for funding proposals.
In 2021, Schumacher was appointed Fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2022, he received the "John von Neumann Excellence Project 2022" award and an ERC Advanced Grant, the most prestigious research funding from the European Union, for his excellent cutting-edge research on flow turbulence. In the coming years, the scientist will be able to use supercomputers and quantum computers to calculate and analyze currents, such as those that occur near the surface of the sun, and thus contribute to improved models of solar activity and more precise weather and climate forecasts.
"I am delighted to have been elected to the Senate and look forward to the interesting new tasks in the German Research Foundation," said Prof. Schumacher after the election.
Prof. Stefan Sinzinger, Vice President for Research and Young Scientists, congratulated Jörg Schumacher immediately after the election on behalf of the entire Executive Board:
It is a great honor that Jörg Schumacher was elected by the General Assembly and that TU Ilmenau will thus be prominently represented in one of the most important German research bodies in the future. Jörg Schumacher's election documents not only his outstanding scientific reputation, but also the great trust placed in him by the scientific community.
Contact
Prof. Jörg Schumacher
Head of Fluid Mechanics