Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Martin Schell and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Wiegand are the Executive Directors of the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut. Both scientists have a distinguished record of expertise in their fields of research.
Their research work influenced industry as well as society. More than 1 Billion devices make use of Fraunhofer HHI video compression technology co-developed by Prof. Wiegand, and nearly every second bit transported in the Internet touches an optical device developed at Fraunhofer HHI. Made possible on the basis of the work of Prof. Schell in the field of photonics.
Both of them have a professorship at the Technical University of Berlin: Prof. Schell for Optic and Optoelectronic Integration and Prof. Wiegand for Image Communication.
The main challenge according to Schell and Wiegand is to enhance the position of Fraunhofer HHI as a leading contributor to information technology, both in software and hardware research.