Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Rethmeier was born in Detmold in 1972 and studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig from 1993 to 1999. After working as a research assistant and earning his doctorate in 2003 at the Institute of Welding Technology in Braunschweig, he was deputy head of the "Manufacturing Technology and Production Concepts" department at Volkswagen AG Group Research. Since 2007, he has been Professor of "Safety of Joined Components" at the Technical University of Berlin and head of the specialist group of the same name at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), Berlin. Since 2009, he has also been head of the Joining and Coating Technology department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK), Berlin.