Johann-Dietrich Wörner

Johann-Dietrich Wörner is the General Director of the European Space Agency. Jan Wörner studied civil engineering at the Technical University (TU) Berlin and TU Darmstadt, from where he graduated in 1985. After his graduation Mr Wörner worked for consulting civil engineers Koenig und Heunisch. In 1990 he was appointed as a professor of Civil Engineering at Technical University Darmstadt, where he was Head of the Test and Research Institute. Before being elected as President of TU Darmstadt in 1995, he held the position of Dean of the newly established Civil Engineering Faculty. Jan Wörner headed the university from 1995 to 2007 and succeeded in making it the first autonomous university of the Federal Republic of Germany. From 2007 – 2015 he served as Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the head of the German delegation to ESA. From 2012 to 2014 he served as Chairman of the ESA Council.

Jan Wörner has been awarded numerous prizes and positions, such as the Prize of the Organisation of Friends of Technical University Darmstadt for ‘outstanding scientific performance’. He was also appointed to the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and to the Convention for Technical Sciences and is a representative of the Technical Sciences Section of the Leopoldina, the national academy of sciences of Germany.

Jan Wörner has received honorary doctorates from New York State University at Buffalo (USA), technical universities of Bucharest (Romania) and Mongolia, the Saint Petersburg University for Economics and Finance (Russia) and École Centrale de Lyon (France).

Jan Wörner was Vice President of the Helmholtz Association and also a member of various national and international supervisory bodies, advisory councils and committees. Furthermore, he was appointed to the energy expert group of the German Government.