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Dr. Matthias Nelde, Manager at PwC Germany in the Transfer Pricing department

Dr. Matthias Nelde is an expert in transfer pricing and financial analysis. He has been a manager at PwC Germany in Mannheim since 2022. Prior to this, he gained international consulting experience at Steiner Consulting Group in the USA. In 2019, he completed his doctorate in economics on the topic of “Investment decisions of private investors - robo-advisors as an instrument for ensuring rationality” at RPTU.

Dr. Tobias Stallmann, Manager at Deloitte in the Infrastructure & Capital Projects division

Dr. Tobias Stallmann has extensive expertise in project management and in advising on complex building construction projects. He has been a Manager at Deloitte in the Infrastructure & Capital Projects division since July 2024 and is responsible for a wide range of construction-specific consulting services for large-volume building construction and infrastructure projects. Previously, he worked as a project manager at Drees & Sommer for over four years, focusing on the initiation and realization of challenging construction projects. His academic career took him to RPTU, where he completed his doctorate in civil engineering in 2019 on the topic of “Load-bearing and deformation behavior of hollow-core slabs made of fine-grained high-performance concrete”. In addition to his professional activities, he has been a volunteer firefighter since 2012."

Dr. Patrick Kölsch

Patrick Kölsch is one of the founders and CEO of greenable, a GreenTech start-up from Kaiserslautern. Greenable develops software to record CO2 emissions during the manufacture of products. "From 2026, the first companies will be obliged to report the product-specific carbon footprint for their customers. We support medium-sized manufacturing companies with our easy-to-use software, which enables companies to quickly provide their customers with trustworthy carbon footprint results." Patrick previously studied industrial engineering at RPTU, specializing in mechanical engineering, and then completed his doctorate at the Chair of Production Engineering and Industrial Organization

Dr. Thomas Robbert

Dr. Thomas Robbert is co-founder of the start-up Evolime, which builds extremely lightweight wheels for the bicycle industry.

"With the current state of the art, it is very expensive to manufacture wheels from fiber-reinforced plastic composites.

We have therefore developed the innovative CompoSpoke production technology, which specifically addresses the disadvantages of conventional manufacturing methods. It enables us to produce high-performance wheel structures with low weight more economically and thus bring fiber-reinforced plastic composites into completely new applications. Our process is currently the only fully variable process for producing monolithic FRP wheel structures from a single continuous fiber band.

The wheel structures are much lighter than conventional wheels. In addition, the process is virtually waste-free and therefore has a very good environmental footprint. Our biggest advantage, however, is that CompoSpoke is comparatively inexpensive and at the same time very flexible."

 Dr. Sigrid März is a cell biologist and studied in Osnabrück and Münster, completed her doctorate and worked as a postdoc in basic research. Initially as a part-time job, and since the beginning of 2020 as a full-time job, she has written about science, medicine and - sometimes - birds and other animals for various media, including Quarks, MedWatch, Spektrum, RiffReporter, Laborjournal.

Dr. Peter Spork is “one of the leading German science authors” according to Deutschlandfunk and is considered “the man who popularized epigenetics”. He studied biology, anthropology and psychology and completed his doctorate in the field of neurobiology/biocybernetics. Since 1991, he has worked as a freelance science journalist (e.g. Die Zeit, FAZ, NZZ, SZ, Geo Wissen, bild der wissenschaft, RiffReporter) and appears as a lecturer as well as on TV and radio. Spork has also written several non-fiction books that have been translated into ten languages. His latest book Die Vermessung des Lebens is the first generally understandable German-language non-fiction book on systems biology.

Career perspectives in science management

Dr.-Ing. Lena Josch studied mathematics at Clausthal University of Technology and then completed her doctorate in the field of materials science (plastics engineering) on the long-term behavior of components made of glass fiber-reinforced plastic. After her postdoctoral period at RPTU in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, she moved to the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim in 2014 as Deputy Head of the Research Strategy and Research Promotion Department. During her time at the Central Institute, she completed a postgraduate degree in science management at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer. Since 2021, she has been working at RPTU as a consultant for national research affairs.

Dr. Robert Lahr studied industrial engineering at RPTU, specializing in mechanical engineering. He then moved to the Institute for Composite Materials in the Processing Technology department and immediately afterwards to the Project Coordination / Technology Transfer staff unit. He completed his doctorate in the field of thermoforming of fiber-plastic composites. In 2010, he took over as Head of Central Services and in 2011 he also took over the Technology Transfer department. He has been a certified science manager (Center for Science Management e.V. Speyer) since 2011. He is currently responsible for knowledge and technology transfer and the technical infrastructure at the Leibniz Institute for Composite Materials. He has also been active for many years as a speaker with seminars on thermoplastic fiber-reinforced composites in various continuing education programs.

Prof. Dr. Peter Pickel studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, specializing in production technology, where he subsequently completed his doctorate on the driving dynamics of tractors. From 2000 to 2010, he was Professor of Agricultural Engineering, Municipal Engineering and Environmental Technology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Today he is Manager External Relations at John Deere in the John Deere European Technology Innovation Center. He is responsible for managing the staff department and project management. He has also been an honorary professor at RPTU since 2019.

Dr. Petra Schuchmann studied chemistry at RPTU and subsequently completed her doctorate in physics on the subject of “Cell differentiation on microstructures”. From 2009 to 2010, she was head of the Innovative Analysis Principles department at Euroimmun AG (Lübeck). Since 2011, she has been working at Blechwarenfabrik Limburg, where she has been Head of Quality and Product Management since 2012 following further training as a quality management officer, internal auditor and quality manager. She is also responsible for various subsidiaries at other European locations.

Dr. Annik Jakob studied biophysics at the RPTU. After a year abroad, she held scientific positions at the Fraunhofer IAF and IMTEK in Freiburg and at the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Freiburg. Ms. Jakob then completed her doctorate there at the Chair of Bacterial Genetics. Since May 2020, she has been working as a product manager at a start-up, where she heads the marketing and sales department and is responsible for sales, assay development in collaboration with customers, customer relationship management and search engine optimization, among other things.

Dr. Franca-Alexandra Rupprecht studied industrial engineering at RPTU, specializing in computer science, and then completed her doctorate in the computer graphics working group. She then worked for several years as a postdoc and supervised various industrial projects as Scientific Coordinator, including with Volkswagen AG and Ferdinand Porsche AG. Since 2019, she has been CEO and co-founder of insight.out GmbH, where she is responsible for marketing, design, finance, research and management. In 2020, the start-up won the “Pioniergeist” start-up award (1st place) and in 2021 it was among the Top 50 startups Germany.