Prof. Dr. Roland Mitsche

The department was founded in 1940 as Institute of Metallurgy and Material’s Testing. The first head of department was Prof. Dr. Roland Mitsche (1903 – 1978). Prof. Mitsche’s scientific work comprised several fields of materials science, e.g. cast iron, aluminium-silicon alloys, transition behaviour of steels, high speed steels, nucleation and crystallization of melts, powder metallurgy, radiation damage, fatigue and fracture, and failure analysis. He also initiated the International Metallography Conference, the International Conference on Light Alloys and the annual Colloquium of Metallurgy in Lech am Arlberg. He was a fancier of art, culture and sports. Prof. Mitsche was given emeritus status in 1973 but continued to be Head of Department as a curator for two more years until his successor took office in 1975.

Prof. Dr. Hellmut Fischmeister

In 1975 Prof. Dr. Hellmut Fischmeister (born in 1927) followed Prof. Mitsche in being head of department. Previously, Prof. Fischmeister had been professor for metallurgy at Chalmers University in Göteborg. During his term in office he set a course in the fields of quantitative metallography, powder metallurgy, fracture mechanics and the development of high temperature materials. In 1981 Prof. Fischmeister accepted an appointment as director of the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart.

Prof. Dr. Karl Maurer

For a short period of time Prof. Dr. Karl Maurer (born in 1927) was head of department. Until he went into retirement in1992 he was manager of the material’s testing section of the institute. Especially, he made his mark by his work in the field of failure analysis. Prof. Maurer is one of the initiators of the conference “Gefuege und Bruch”.

Prof. Dr. Franz Jeglitsch

Prof. Dr. Franz Jeglitsch (born in 1934) was appointed as head of department in 1982. Before that, he had been manager of the institute’s metallography section, director of research and technology and general manager of the Austrian Research Center in Seibersdorf and since 1980 professor for technology and metallurgy of non-ferrous metals at the University of Leoben. On the initiative of Prof. Jeglitsch the exploratory focus „high-performance materials“ was brought into being. Furthermore, the Laser Center in Niklasdorf and the Materials Center Leoben, which, as a research company, serves as a successful partner for industry, were founded. Under Prof. Jeglitsch’s lead the institute increased its number of employees to sometimes more than 40 persons, third-party funded staff counted in. Between 1987 and 1991 Prof. Jeglitsch was president of the University of Leoben, between 1991 and 2000 he was a member of the Styrian parliament.

Prof. Dr. Albert Kneissl

After Prof. Jeglitsch had been given emeritus status in 2002 Prof. Dr. Albert Kneissl (born in 1952) became head of department. Prof. Kneissl already had been appointed as professor of metallography in 1996, his fields of research were the solidification of monotectic alloys under terrestrial and extraterrestrial conditions, micro-alloyed steels, and shape-memory alloys. In the years 2000 to 2003 he was 1st vice president of the University of Leoben.

Prof. Dr. Helmut Clemens

As Prof. Jeglitsch’s successor Prof. Dr. Helmut Clemens (born in 1957) took office as head of department and professor for metallurgy and metallic materials in 2003. Before that, Prof. Clemens worked for the Plansee Company in Reutte concentrating on the development of intermetallic materials (focus titanaluminides), was professor at the University of Stuttgart and later on director of the GKSS research center in Geesthacht near Hamburg and professor at the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel. Focus of his research activities at the University of Leoben are high temperature materials, intermetallic materials, steels, and precipitates and phase transitions. In teaching Prof. Clemens tries to descriptively combine theory with practical application.