Science is exciting – not only for researchers, but also for the broad public. Smart energy grids or silent communication, optical nanoantennas or navigation systems for interior rooms, things investigated and developed today may change our everyday life tomorrow. The “KIT experts” service helps journalists find contact partners for currently discussed topics and exciting research areas of KIT.
Representatives of the media can find the KIT experts under http://www.pkm.kit.edu/kit_experten.php. Journalists are provided with a compact description of selected projects at KIT. Here, the topics covered by KIT and scientists working on these projects are presented. Activities of the KIT centers and focuses and the KIT competence portfolio are reflected from energy research to climate and environmental research, nanosciences, elementary particle physics and astroparticle physics to current projects in the fields of informatics or mobility systems, for instance. The list also includes cooperation projects with renowned partners from industry and research. The “KIT experts” platform is constantly extended to cover new topics.
Examples of projects and KIT experts: The MeRegio project (minimum emission regions) uses smart information and communication technology to network electricity suppliers, stores, and consumers. KIT is the partner of this project funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The KIT Energy Center and the KIT COMMputation Focus participate in MeRegio. The expert is Professor Hartmut Schmeck, Spokesman of the KIT COMMputation Focus and Head of the Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods.
Another research project at KIT focuses on silent communication and understanding or on calling without anybody in the surroundings listening or having to listen. Silent speech interfaces detect and process spoken language by acquiring and interpreting the electrical activity of articulation muscles. The KIT expert is Professor Tanja Schultz, Chair of Cognitive Systems.
When granting credits, banks have to consider, evaluate, and control risks. One of the most urgent problems of credit risk management is to adequately consider dependencies of credit defaults. Under a project funded by the German Research Foundation, KIT experts have developed a model to determine credit risks and verified it for practical use. The KIT expert is Professor Marliese Uhrig-Homburg, Institute for Finance, Banking, and Insurance.
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.