Senate today confirmed the candidates proposed by the Rector for the positions of Vice-Rector Research and Vice-Rector Education and International Affairs.
The candidates proposed by the Rector for the post of Vice-Rector were elected by the Senate today by a large majority. From March 10 this year until February 28, 2025, the newly elected Rector, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Kratzsch, will be assisted by Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Sophia Keil as Vice Rector Education and International Affairs and Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Raj Kollmorgen as Vice-Rector for Research. Last but not least, their goals and ideas for the future of Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences are likely to have been decisive for their election.
Prof. Sophia Keil was born on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen and studied business administration at Stralsund University of Applied Sciences. From 2005 to 2006, she completed a part-time doctorate at the Technical University of Dresden. During her professional development at the semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies Dresden GmbH, at the Chair of Business Administration, in particular Logistics at TU Dresden, at Dresden International University (DIU) and at Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, she was able to acquire comprehensive specialist, experience and management knowledge in the fields of corporate process, production, supply chain and logistics optimization. In 2011, she received her doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden with a thesis on "Flow-oriented design of production systems using the example of semiconductor factories". In 2015, she was offered a professorship at SUNY Polytechnic Institute Albany (NY, USA), which she did not accept.
Since December 2017, Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Sophia Keil has been Professor of Business Administration, in particular Production Management and Logistics at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. In December 2018, she was elected Dean of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Industrial Engineering.
Her research focuses on the development of approaches to shaping the digital transformation of the economy and society, the development of innovative teaching/learning methods and educational formats for people of all generations and the development of methods for the effective and efficient design of production systems and supply chains. She is currently active in the two European high-tech research projects "Power to Power" and "Integrated Development 4.0". Here she is particularly concerned with the design of the workplaces of the future in the context of Industry 4.0. In addition, she heads the BMBF research project "Europe Open Academy" ("EurOpA"), which is part of the major structural change project and alliance "Lusatia - Life and Technology". The aim of this project is to design and establish a further education academy in Upper Lusatia. She is a member of the program committees of the Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC) and the European Advanced Process Control and Manufacturing Conference (apcm) and the author of over 30 publications.
Prof. Raj Kollmorgen was born in Leipzig. Between 1985 and 1990, he studied philosophy, social sciences and economics in Berlin and then worked as an employee, lecturer and professor at various academic institutions, including the universities of Jena, Magdeburg and Toronto (Canada).
In spring 2013, he was appointed Professor of Social Change Management at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. Since 2014, he has been the course coordinator for the Master's degree program "Management of Social Change" at the Faculty of Social Sciences and has also been the director of the Institute for Transformation, Housing and Social Spatial Development (TRAWOS) since 2016.
His research focuses on comparative transformation research, East Germany and German unification, socio-ecological change, innovative regional development, elites, political populism and radicalism. He has published widely on these topics, most recently, for example, the "Handbook of Political, Social, and Economic Transformation" (together with Wolfgang Merkel and Hans-Jürgen Wagener). He is also present in the regional and national mass media and has been advising various state, political and civil society actors for years.
He is currently a member of the German government's commission on "30 Years of Peaceful Revolution and German Unification".
