10 years of Fraunhofer TALENTA

As part of the portrait series "10 Years of TALENTA," female scientists introduce themselves who are participating or have participated in the TALENTA funding program at Fraunhofer IIS at various stages of their careers.

TALENTA is a comprehensive career and development program for female scientists and female managers of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The program is based on providing financial support for the recruitment and sustainable development of female scientists and executives. Additionally, the program focuses on the individual career development of female scientists at Fraunhofer.

The program addresses career development at different levels through its three program lines: TALENTA start, TALENTA speed up, and TALENTA excellence, offering corresponding qualification opportunities. With the so-called “career time”, female scientists are given the necessary space in their working day to focus on developing as a scientist or manager in the field of applied research.

Eva Hasenberger is an expert on audio solutions for vehicles; she and her team develop algorithms for converting stereo content into surround sound and 3D audio. Fraunhofer’s TALENTA promotional program prepared her to assume supervisory tasks. As a project leader, she is committed to diversity and the promotion of women in STEM fields.

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TALENTA alumna Dr. Birgit Popp and her Human-Machine Interaction group are studying large language models and the transparent design of voice assistance systems that help users make fair decisions. She received support from the TALENTA program, subsequently leading a research group in the Audio and Media Technologies division at Fraunhofer IIS.

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Sensor-controlled sorting for recycling materials: Recognizing valuable material on printed circuit boards is one of the topics that drives Julija Lucic’s research. In the Sorting and Laboratory Systems group at the Development Center X-ray Technology EZRT, her work focuses on sorting systems that use X-ray technology for material differentiation. “Here we use multi-energy X-ray technology to obtain more detailed information about the objects we’re investigating. We mainly sort materials in the areas of recycling, food safety, and mining,” Lucic explains. The TALENTA program has helped her to further develop her strengths.

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TALENTA speed up participant Dr. Astrid Hölzing and her NanoCT Systems group are transferring the latest results from university research and development into materials science and industrial applications. TALENTA offers her a framework to reflect on and evaluate her leadership responsibilities as a group manager.

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“I’ve found my place between research and application,” says Julia Hetzel. She is a medical engineer working on making innovative technologies, in particular new AI methods, usable for medical or biological applications. Instead of pursuing a traditional scientific career and earning a doctorate, she develops software for medical research that is intended to lead to improved diagnosis and treatment.

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