“The characterization of materials and constructions with extremely high lifetime expectancies and an optimal utilization of the strength potential of modern materials represent an innovative and promising area for my future research activities”, outlined Prof. Zimmermann. Her expertise in the field of high-frequency fatigue testing technologies and the associated peripheral measuring techniques as well as her extensive experience in high-resolution analytical methods will provide the foundation for research work at the highest scientific level. Alongside her primary focus on basic research, Prof. Zimmermann will also be setting her sights on the characterization and prevention of damage development for industry-related applications using high-frequency test engineering in the sense of “short-term diagnostics”.

At the same time she was appointed to the TU Dresden, Prof. Zimmermann also assumed the directorship of the Material Characterization Group at the Fraunhofer IWS Dresden. This latter appointment has resulted in a gain of expertise for the IWS in the field of mechanical and dynamic material testing. “The investigations undertaken by Prof. Zimmermann are of crucial significance for the research topics of energy efficiency and conversion as well as technologies and materials for mobility that are currently pursued at the Fraunhofer IWS and the TU Dresden”, Prof. Eckhard Beyer states, Director of the Fraunhofer IWS and Dean of the Mechanical Engineering Faculty at the TU Dresden.

The appointment of Ms. Zimmermann to the chair funded by the Fraunhofer Society is an essential feature of the energy efficiency DIZE^eff of the Dresden Innovation Center opened on 27^th February 2009. The aim of this joint activity of the TU Dresden and Fraunhofer Society is a close scientific cooperation not only in academic teaching and research but also in strengthening the innovative expertise in Dresden as a research location. Thanks to its six Fraunhofer Institutes and seven other Fraunhofer facilities, Dresden has become the largest Fraunhofer location in the new Federal States of Germany (the former East Germany), and thus predestined for such a pilot project.

The Dresden Innovation Centre Energy Efficiency DIZE^eff represented the first pillar of the DRESDEN concept network, in which the TU Dresden joined forces with all the key scientific societies in Dresden for the purpose of, inter alia, creating a common research and university educational environment, thereby focusing on a new kind of cooperation in the area of basic and application-oriented research as well as the promotion of young researchers.