Portrait of Professor Zimmermann
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martina Zimmermann has held the Chair of Mechanics of Materials and Failure Analysis and Head of the Materials Characterization competence field at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology Dresden since 2012. She was born in Unkel am Rhein in 1966. Since 2013, she has worked as a liaison lecturer for the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. From the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2022, the scientist was President (dual leadership) of the German Society for Materials Science (DGM) and has been a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering since November 2021.
Without modern materials testing and characterization ... the evaluation of materials and products would still be subjective. This would mean that we would have no choice but to assess the reliability of aircraft components, power plant structures, bone replacement materials, etc. in an "archaic way". This would then be comparable to biting on gold coins as an authenticity test. Understanding complex relationships between the structure and properties of a material, influences from manufacturing and operational stresses - and making the best possible use of them - that is what I expect from every responsible engineer, regardless of department.
For me, being a professor... is a vocation in the true sense of the word. I am deeply grateful to be able to start the day with joy and curiosity again and again and to return home in the evening with a full bag of encounters and insights. For me, researching and teaching TOGETHER means never standing still, never being satisfied with anything, in the spirit of the US physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Phillips Feynman: "We absolutely must leave room for doubt, otherwise there will be no progress, no learning. You can't find out anything new if you don't ask a question first. And asking questions requires doubt."
Students ... are the future leaders of society. I see it as my duty to accompany them on their way there and to offer them a wide range of opportunities to expand their skills - both professionally and personally - and to set an example for them with a healthy dose of humor and humanity.
In the future ... we as engineers and scientists will have to make a significant contribution to solving the challenges facing humanity, in which Material Science will also play a decisive role. There must be an even greater focus on understanding the seemingly effortless laws of nature even better in order to make them usable for a technologized world.
If I could go back to university ... I would again be faced with the dilemma that I am interested in too many subject areas, from technology to science, foreign languages and communication psychology. I would probably let reason decide again. But with my current knowledge, I would probably take a look at solid state physics as well as mechanical engineering.
For me, excellence ... means having the courage to break new ground and pursue it with full conviction and with the highest standards of performance, competence, initiative and responsibility. The unique synergy potential of the numerous alliances between the university and non-university research institutions in Dresden are both an inspiration and an incentive for me.