Portrait of Professor Kästner
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Markus Kästner has held the Chair of Computational and Experimental Solid Mechanics since October 2016. He is also acting head of the Working Group on Structural Durability. He was born in Rochlitz in 1980.
Without solid mechanics ... everything would be a fluid; there would be no pyramids and no Frauenkirche; there would be no ICE trains, no airplanes flying and no smartphones ringing. The combination of modern numerical calculation procedures and experimental methods contributes to an ever better understanding of our environment. It enables the development of state-of-the-art materials and ensures their resource-efficient use.
Being a professor ... offers me as a researcher the opportunity to implement new ideas together with a team of creative people and to predict reality ever more precisely on the computer. Being able to pass on this knowledge and the necessary skills to young people is a wonderful and at the same time extremely responsible task.
Students ... should always approach this formative stage of their lives with optimism and curiosity, while at the same time critically scrutinizing new ideas. They should be ready to seize the opportunities that studying offers and discover the world for themselves.
In the future ... materials, manufacturing processes and structures will be inseparable. The increasing digitalization of our environment and development processes will lead to materials and components being created on the computer first. This requires increasingly powerful and precise simulations. However, the necessary ability to think analytically and creatively remains unchanged.
If I could study again ... I would probably study medicine. That's where science and modern technology can achieve the most.
For me, excellence ... means the symbiosis of innovative research and attractive, contemporary teaching.