Chemist to head Max Planck Association

Martin Stratmann, a chemist specialising in iron, has been chosen to be the next president of the Max Planck Association.

The main assembly of the association, which is a collection of German research institutes, voted last week for Stratmann to succeed Peter Gruss, who has been at the helm for 11 years. Stratmann will take up the role in June 2014, it was announced on 6 June.

The chemist, who graduated from the Ruhr University in Bochum in 1979, has worked at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, United States, and at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Most recently, he headed Germany’s largest public-private partnership on iron processing, as well as the Max Planck department for surface chemistry and surface technology.