Prof. Dr. Alexander Martin

Fraunhofer IIS director, responsible for the Positioning and Networks as well as the Supply Chain Services research areas

© Fotostudio Seitz / Editing Fraunhofer IIS

As of November 1, 2019, Prof. Alexander Martin is a director at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in Erlangen, Germany. Since 2023, he has been the founding Vice President for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Technical University of Nuremberg (UTN). From 2010 to 2023, he has headed the Chair of Economics, Discrete Optimization, and Mathematics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). From 2015 to 2019, he also took on responsibility for the Analytics department in the Supply Chain Services research unit at Fraunhofer IIS.

Prof. Martin studied industrial mathematics at the University of Augsburg before receiving his doctorate from the Technical University of Berlin and qualifying there as a university lecturer. He served as deputy head of the optimization department at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) before becoming professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in 2000 and later vice president from 2008 to 2010.

In addition to his work as an editor for several international journals (e.g. Mathematical Methods of Operations Research), Prof. Martin is a mathematics expert for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). He continues to be involved with various special research (SFB) initiatives (including SFB 666, SFB 805, and as chair for TRR 154 until April 2023), the Graduate School of Excellence Computational Engineering at TU Darmstadt, and several joint projects of BMBF and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

Academic and career highlights

since 2023	Founding Vice President for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Technical University of Nuremberg (UTN)
since 2019	Director of Fraunhofer IIS
2015-2019	Head of the Analytics department in the Supply Chain Services SCS research unit at Fraunhofer IIS
2010-2023	Professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), head of the Chair of Economics, Discrete Optimization, and Mathematics
2000-2010	Professor of mathematics at TU Darmstadt
1998-2000	Deputy head of the Optimization department at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB)
1991-1998	Research fellow at ZIB
1988-1991	Research fellow at the University of Augsburg
1984-1988	Studies in industrial mathematics and electrical engineering at the University of Augsburg

Focus areas

Prof. Martin’s research areas include studying and solving general mixed-integer linear and nonlinear optimization problems, including the development of suitable models, their mathematical analysis, and the design and implementation of efficient algorithms to solve them. The main areas of application include problems in transportation, traffic and energy optimization. It is particularly important to him that his findings be implemented in industrial applications.

Key milestones

since 2023	Founding Vice President for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Technical University of Nuremberg (UTN)
since 2019	Member of the DFG Senate and Grants Committee on Research Training Groups
since 2014	Spokesperson of the Transregio SFB TRR 154 “Mathematical Modelling, Simulation and Optimization Using the Example of Gas Networks”
since 2007	Mathematics expert for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
2016	EURO Excellence in Practice Award 2016 for “Evaluating Gas Network Capacities”
2008-2014	Managing editor for the journal Mathematical Methods of Operations Research
2008-2010	Vice president at TU Darmstadt
2007	3rd place at the Hessischer Kooperationspreis (Cooperation Awards in the federal state of Hesse) 2007 for particularly innovative and successful cooperation between Hessian companies and universities (jointly with P. Lietz)