Stelzer, Franz#

Em.Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Franz Stelzer

Chemie, Forschungskriterien

Professor Franz Stelzer obtained his PhD in Technical Sciences (field: polymer chemistry) from Graz University of Technology (TUG) in 1975.

He was active as Teaching Assistent 1973 - 1975, Assistent Professor 1976 - 1987, Associate Professor 1987- 2001 and appointed as Full Professor in 2001 at TUG.

Meanwhile he worked as guest researcher in Durham (GB) with Prof. W.J. Feast (summer 1980) and as Visiting Associate at CalTech (1987/88) with Prof. R.H. Grubbs.

He was Director of the Christian-Doppler-Laboratory for Catalytic Polymerization (1991 - 1995), chairman of the Faculty of Sciences (1996 - 2000) and Dean of the Facultyof Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (2004 - 2007)

He was Vice-Rector for Research and Technology at TUG 2007- 2011.

Since 1998 he has been heading the Institute for Chemistry & Technology of Organic Materials at TUG.

His research interests include synthesis, characterisation and technology of specialty polymers for optical and electronic applications (e.g. conjugated polymers, liquid crystalline polymers), biocompatible / antimicrobial polymers and polymer modification. In these research fields he and his team have been involved in several Austrian (FWF, FFG) and (since FP5) European R&D Projects.

He is member of several scientific societies (GOeCH, ACS, ). In July he was elected as the president of the European Polymer Federation (EPF) for the period 2008/2009.