Portrait of Professor Odenbach
Prof. Stefan Odenbach has been Dean of Studies for the Mechanical Engineering degree courses since 2012 and also Dean of Studies for the Master's degree course in Textile Machinery and Textile High Performance Materials Technology since 2016. He has held the Chair of Magnetofluid Dynamics, Measurement and Automation Technology since 2005 and has coordinated the DFG Priority Program 1681 since 2012. In 2010, 2016 and 2020, he received the "Prize for Innovation in Teaching" from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He was a member of the Senate and Grants Committee for Collaborative Research Centers of the German Research Foundation and is a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences. He was born in Leverkusen in 1964.
Without magnetofluid dynamics, measurement and automation technology ... our technology would be inconceivable. It starts at home with the iron and the washing machine and extends to every power station and every large-scale plant. Without measuring something and automating it on this basis, there is no technology.
Being a professor ... is the challenge of combining teaching and research at the highest possible level - both in terms of the quality of teaching and the quality of the research structure.
Students ... should be committed and interested. Everything else is my job. However, teaching content only works with really interested students - namely those who are prepared to convert their interest into time investment.
In the future ... magnetic particles will be used biomedically in cancer therapy, for example. The aim is to use cancer-damaging chemotherapeutic agents locally in such a targeted way that the tumors can be torpedoed with a much higher dose than previously possible and the stressful side effects such as hair loss can be completely eradicated at the same time. To achieve this, the chemotherapeutic agents are equipped with magnetic particles. With the help of a magnetic field, they can be directed in the body exactly where the malignant tumor is located.
If I could study again ... I would study physics again, because the basic mathematical and physical training still helps me incredibly today. However, with my current knowledge and the energy I had back then, I would now aim for a double degree in physics and engineering - to combine a sound basic education with detailed technical knowledge.
Excellence ... means not only the obligation to successfully implement the major projects of the Excellence Initiative, but above all the essential challenge of not losing our university character according to the Humboldtian principle. First of all, we are a university. So the essential thing is to see university - and above all teaching - and excellence as one concept.