Prof. Dr. Alexander Martin

Fraunhofer IIS Director

Prof. Alexander Martin was appointed Director at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in Erlangen on November 1, 2019, joining the institute’s management team. Since 2023, he has served as the founding Vice President for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN). He is also a W3 Professor at UTN, where he heads the Research Group Analytics and Optimization. From 2010 to 2023, he held the Chair of Economics, Discrete Optimization, and Mathematics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). From 2015 to 2019, he also headed the Analytics department within the Supply Chain Services research division at Fraunhofer IIS.

Prof. Martin studied business mathematics at the University of Augsburg. He obtained his doctorate and habilitation in mathematics from the Technical University of Berlin. He served as deputy head of the Optimization Department at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) before being appointed professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt in 2000, where he later served as vice president from 2008 to 2010.

In addition to his editorial work for several international journals (including Mathematical Methods of Operations Research), Prof. Martin serves as an expert reviewer in mathematics for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). He has been involved in various Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) initiatives (including SFB 666 and SFB 805, spokesperson of TRR 154 until April 2023), the Graduate School of Excellence ‘Computational Engineering’ at TU Darmstadt and several collaborative projects funded by the BMBF and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

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Career path

Academic and professional background

Since 2023	Founding Vice President for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Technische Universität Nürnberg (UTN)
Since 2023	W3 Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Technische Universität Nürnberg (UTN), Head of the Research Group Analytics and Optimization
Since 2019	Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS
2015–2019	Head of the Analytics Department in the Supply Chain Services Research Division at Fraunhofer IIS
2010–2023	W3 Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Chair of Business Mathematics
2008–2010	Vice President of Technische Universität Darmstadt
2000–2010	C4/W3 Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Technische Universität Darmstadt
1998–2000	Deputy Head of the Optimization Department at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB)
1991–1998	Research Associate at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB)
1988–1991	Research Associate at the University of Augsburg
1984–1988	Studies in Business Mathematics at the University of Augsburg

Focus areas

Research Focus

Alexander Martin’s research focuses on applied optimization, combining mathematical theory with real-world applications. His work centers on mixed-integer linear and nonlinear optimization problems that integrate discrete and continuous decisions. Alexander Martin studies the structural properties of these models, develops improved mathematical formulations, and analyzes their polyhedral structure to enable more efficient solution methods.

Another key focus is the development and analysis of high-performance algorithms, particularly exact methods such as branch-and-bound, branch-and-cut, and branch-and-price. Alexander Martin enhances these approaches with cutting-plane techniques as well as heuristic and metaheuristic methods, enabling the practical solution of large and complex problem instances. His work also addresses nonlinear and combinatorial optimization, with a particular emphasis on relaxations, convexity, and approximation methods.

His research is strongly application-oriented and focuses on optimization problems in the transportation, mobility, communication, and energy sectors – for example in network design, routing and scheduling, as well as in the planning and control of communication and energy systems. A particular priority in his work is the transfer of theoretical insights into industrial practice, reflected in the development of practical software solutions, close collaboration with industry partners, and the adaptation of methods to real-world data and large-scale applications.

Overall, his work integrates modeling, mathematical analysis, and algorithmic implementation to efficiently solve complex, real-world decision problems.

Key milestones

2023–2024	President of the German Operations Research Society (GOR)
2019–2024	Member of the DFG Senate and Grants Committee on Research Training Groups
2019	Rosenbrock Prize for the best paper published in Optimization and Engineering (2019)
2014–2023	Spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center TRR 154 “Mathematical Modelling, Simulation and Optimization of Gas Networks”
2007–2020	Expert Reviewer for Mathematics, Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
2016	EURO Excellence in Practice Award (2016) for “Evaluating Gas Network Capacities”
2008–2014	Managing Editor, Mathematical Methods of Operations Research
2007	Third Prize, Hessian Cooperation Award (2007), for outstanding collaboration between industry and research institutions (with P. Lietz)