Prof. Dr.-Ing. Erik Bitzek (he/him)

Erik Bitzek joined the MPIE in September 2021 and is affiliated with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. He studied physics at the University Stuttgart where he received his Diploma (Dipl. Phys.) with distinction in 2000. After starting his PhD in the group of Prof. Eduard Arzt at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research (now MPI for Intelligent Systems) in Stuttgart, he moved in 2002 with his advisor, Prof. Peter Gumbsch, to the newly founded Institut für Zuverlässigkeit von Bauteilen und Systemen (now IAM-CMS) at the technical university Karlsruhe (now KIT), from where he obtained his doctorate degree (Dr.-Ing.) with distinction in 2006. During his first Postdoc in the group of Prof. Helena van Swygenhoven at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland he was also visiting scientist at the Ohio State University, USA, in the groups of Prof. Peter Anderson and Prof. Yunzhi Wang. His second Postdoc with Prof. Ju Li brought him to the University of Pennsylvania, USA, to which he stayed connected as visiting professor after being appointed at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in 2009 as assistant professor (“Juniorprofessor”). From 2015 to 2021 he was full professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute I. From 2013 till 2021 he was furthermore Chair of the international Elite Master’s Programme “Advanced Materials and Processes (MAP)”. At FAU he was also member of the board of the research training group GRK1896 “In-Situ Microscopy with Electrons, X-rays and Scanning Probes”, board member of NHR@FAU and funding member of the Competence Center for Research Data and Information.
He is PI in the SFB1394 Structural and Chemical Atomic Complexity and was amongst others part of the  SFB/TR103 Superalloy Single Crystals, the SPP1594 Topological Engineering of Ultrastrong Glasses and the SPP2074 Fluidfreie Schmiersysteme mit hoher mechanischer Belastung as well as the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) Project Fracture Across Scales and Materials, Processes and Disciplines (FRAMED). At the MPI-SusMat, he is the scientific coordinator of the IMPRS SusMet.

Erik Bitzek serves the scientific community amongst others as member of the editorial board of the Journal of Molecular Modeling, and of International Materials Reviews, member of the Executive Committee of the conference series “Dislocations”, and co-initiator of the working group 3D Materials Data Science and member of the Expert Committee Materials Modeling, Simulation and Data of the German Materials Research Society (DGM). He is Co-Spokesperson of the Forschungsdaten Infrastruktur Initiative NFDI-MatWerk.

Erik Bitzek has been a member of the review board of the German Science Foundation (DFG) Since 2024. He furthermore serves as a reviewer for the ERC, various organizations in Germany, Austria, Israel, Canada, and the US, and for top-ranked journals in materials science and physics. He also has organized and co-organized more than 20 national and international workshops and symposia.

He is the author and co-author of more than 70 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, of one patent application, and has given invited presentations at more than 50 international conferences, workshops, and seminars. In 2008 his work was designated as “Outstanding Research by Promising Young Researchers in Mechanics and Materials” by the Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers, in 2009 he was awarded the Best Poster Award at the Gordon Research Conference on Physical Metallurgy and obtained in 2013 the starting grant of the Cluster of Excellence Engineering of Advanced Materials (EAM).

In 2016, he was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for his project Microscopic Origins of Fracture Toughness (microKIc), and from 2024 on, he is named a DFG Mercator Fellow for the GRK2423 “Fracture across Scales”.

Recent and upcoming organized events

• CECAM Flagship Workshop "Fulfilling the Multiscale Promise in Materials: Getting Information out of the Atomistic Scale", EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland
  
• Mechanics and physics of fracture - Minisymposium @ ESMC2025, Lyon, France
• IMPRS SusMet Workshop on Research Data Management 2023, Düsseldorf, Germany
  
• New Horizons in Materials Design 2023, Düsseldorf, Germany
  
• DPG Spring Meeting 2023, Dresden, Germany, Co-organizer of the Topical Fundamentals of Fracture and Member of the organizing committee of the Metal and Material Physics division

Media & Outreach

• "Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht..." Vortrag auf dem #AGD24 - der Tagung für Unternehmer in Düsseldorf
• „Der Herr der Risse: Zerstoeren fuer die Wissenschaft“, TV report in Franken-Fernsehen 
• „Realistic simulations reveal atomic-scale details responsible for superalloy properties“, article in MRS Bulletin 
• „Superlegierungen“, article in Chemie in unserer Zeit
• „Simulation am Supercomputer“, article in Maschine und Werkzeug
• „Warum Dinge kaputt gehen“ in Laborpraxis
• „Simulation: Den Superkräften von Superlegierungen auf der Spur“, article in materialsgate.de 
• „Sinnvolle Zerstörung“, Nürnberger Nachrichten, 17./18. Juni 2017