New Director for the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf

On Wednesday, May 3rd, the internationally renowned laser physicist Roland Sauerbrey will be inaugurated as the new Scientific Director at the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf (FZR). During the inauguration, which will start at 2pm, the FZR will also bid farewell to its current scientific director, Bernd Johannsen. With a staff of approximately 550 employees and an overall budget of about 60 million Euros, the FZR is one of the biggest research institutions outside the universities in the new federal states and an important employer for the city of Dresden and its region.

Roland Sauerbrey is 53 years old and is considered one of the leading experts in high intensity laser beam physics. His distinguished career led him from Würzburg in Germany, to the Rice University in Houston, Texas, and afterwards to the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany. It was in 1996 in Jena when Prof. Sauerbrey started to operate the world strongest laser at the time and to be actively involved building the German physics community. As member of the Board of the German Physical Society (DPG), Prof. Sauerbrey was responsible for the scientific programs and prizes from 1998 to 2002. He was the president of the DPG from 2002 to 2004. Furthermore, he has been a member of the “Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften” and of the “Akademie der gemeinnützigen Wissenschaften zu Erfurt” since 1998. His international reputation as a laser physicist is highlighted by the fact that he is a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde as well as by numerous prizes he has received. In 2004, for example, Prof. Sauerbrey won the research prize in Thuringia and in 2005 the “Prix La Recherche” of the French scientific magazine “La Recherche“.

Prof. Sauerbrey wants to establish the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf as an internationally renowned center in the fields of structure of matter, safety research, and life sciences. “Our goal must be to rank first in the scientific fields we have identified as our main focus”, Prof. Sauerbrey says.

Already today, user laboratories at the FZR attract scientists from all over Europe. For example, the Ion Beam Center and the Free-Electron Laser in Rossendorf are supported by the European Union as user facilities. Only a few days ago the Ion Beam Center received funding to establish it as a European Large-Scale Facility. With a grant of 1.4 million euros travel costs of European scientists who want to use the unique Ion Beam Center in Rossendorf are covered until 2010. The FZR will try to establish the same status for the High Magnetic Field Laboratory Dresden as soon as it will start its operation as a user facility in the beginning of 2007.

Interviews:
Prof. Roland Sauerbrey will be available for interviews. Please contact Ms. Christine Bohnet in public relations if you would like to set up an appointment for an interview.

You may find pictures of the inauguration of Prof. Sauerbrey and the farewell to Prof. Johannsen >>via this link.

Prof. Roland Sauerbrey
Prof. Roland Sauerbrey, Scientific Director of the FZR

Public Relations:
Dr. Christine Bohnet
Tel.: 0351 260 2450 oder 0160 969 288 56
Fax: 0351 260 2700