Heike Riel elected future president of German Physical Society DPG

The German Physical Society DPG’s board of directors elected industrial physicist Heike Riel as it’s future president starting from April 2026.

Riel will take over from incumbent president Klaus Richter, who cannot be re-elected according to the articles of association. Like his predecessor, Richter will then assume the office of vice president for two years.

Heike Riel is IBM Fellow and Head of Science & Technology at IBM. She is also the vice director of the NCCR SPIN. She has received numerous awards for her scientific and technical achievements. In 2012, for example, she was awarded the prize for “Technical or Scientific Innovation” by the Swiss Association of Women Engineers. Riel has been chair of the scientific advisory council of Forschungszentrum Jülich since 2013, was elected to the German Academy of Natural Scientists in 2015 and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2020.