Vita of Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Stefan Hiermaier

Stefan Hiermaier studied Aerospace Engineering at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, where he also earned his doctorate at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodesy. In 2002, he habilitated there and was appointed to an adjunct professorship in High-Dynamics at the same university in 2008.

Today, he is a Professor at the Institute for Sustainable Systems Engineering (INATECH) of the Technical Faculty at the University of Freiburg. Since 2015, he has also been the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, Ernst-Mach-Institut (EMI), and from 2015 to 2020, he concurrently held the position of director at INATECH.

Hiermaier gained international research experience as a visiting professor at the University of Oxford and, from 2005 to 2014, at Cranfield University. In 2005, he also spent half a year as a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Stefan Hiermaier's research activities focus on integrating experimental and numerical methods to investigate strain-rate-dependent and shock wave-loaded material behavior. Key topics include the development of mesh-free methods and the formulation of mathematical models for material behavior under crash and impact loads.

Stefan Hiermaier has authored numerous publications on these topics. In 2008, his book "Structures Under Crash and Impact" was published by Springer. He is the editor of the book "Numerical Modeling of Dynamic Processes," Springer 2009. Hiermaier is also the editor of the series "Epsilon-Punkt – Forschungsergebnisse aus der Kurzzeitdynamik "Until 2016, he was co-editor of the International Journal of Impact Engineering.

From 2012 to 2016, Stefan Hiermaier was the president of the DYMAT Society (European Association for the Promotion of Research into the Dynamic Behaviour of Materials and its Applications).

Stefan Hiermaier, together with Prof. Gunther Neuhaus, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Freiburg, founded the Sustainability Center Freiburg, which was established as a collaboration between the five Freiburg Fraunhofer Institutes and the University of Freiburg. He coordinated the Center from 2015 to 2025.