The Professor of Operations Research at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich brings with him many years of expertise in the field of safety and security.
At a time when most people didn’t believe in warlike situations in Europe, Stefan Pickl founded the COMTESSA (Core Competence Center for Operations Research, Management-Tenacity-Excellence, Safety & Security ALLIANCE) in Munich. His goal, even back then over 20 years ago, was to increase the resilience of society.
Pickl’s research focuses include the area of “Safety & Security,” the analysis of complex systems, resilient infrastructures, risk analysis, the development of optimization methods for IT-based decision support, and the challenges of digital resilience in megacities. He is also an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus, in Kuala Lumpur.
“It’s always about the question: How can I better protect today’s city with tomorrow’s technologies?” says the computer scientist and mathematician, who received his doctorate from TU Darmstadt in 1998.
He has been active in various committees for many years, including as a member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). He is also Vice President of the German Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction e.V. (DKKV).
The scientist now wants to contribute his many years of experience to the LOEWE Center emergenCITY: “To paraphrase Munich veteran Karl Valentin, ‘Everything has actually been said already.’ emergenCITY already has comprehensive, excellent expertise and a unique national position, but perhaps I can add a new scientific nuance to the ‘emergenCITY menu’ with a certain Bavarian spice.” So he has been an Associated PI since April.
On the one hand, he wants to promote networking between Munich and Darmstadt (also with regard to the two airports), and on the other, he wants to foster exchange with the HOLM Science Forum, of which he is a member. In particular, the integration of emergenCITY researchers into a planned living lab on the topic of civil protection is conceivable. Furthermore, he could imagine offering seminars for managers that also address the emergenCITY topic in the context of digital resilience.
