News published on 26.3.2020

Experienced Innovation Manager joins Helmholtz Institute Freiberg

On March 3rd, Dr Christina Meskers commenced her appointment as a senior research fellow in the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF), an institute of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). With her experience as former Senior Innovation Manager at Umicore, a global materials technology and recycling group, she will help to build the newly established Department of Process Metallurgy. This department is not only set to develop innovative metallurgical processes that are both energy and resource efficient, but also to create a fundamental understanding of the possibilities and limits of the circular economy by simulating, linking and assessing entire value chains. Within this context, Meskers will engage with a broad range of stakeholders with the goal to facilitate the seamless transfer of knowledge and innovative technologies created within the HIF into industry and society. This will also include placing the HIF contributions in the context of the United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goals’.

Christina Meskers graduated from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, with a M.Sc. (2004) in Resource Engineering and a Ph.D. (2008) in Materials Science and Engineering. Her education included international experiences at McGill University (Canada), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the University of Melbourne (Australia). Following the completion of her Ph.D. Meskers pursued a professional career at Umicore, where she held the position of Senior Manager “Open Innovation at Corporate R&D for the Recycling & Extractive Technologies platform” for the last three years. Prior to this, she headed the market intelligence and business research team at Umicore Precious Metals Refining. Christina Meskers is the current Chair of the Extraction and Processing Division and Member of the Board of Directors of The Minerals Metals and Materials Society (TMS).