Professor Dr.-Ing. Rainer Stark, born in 1964, studied mechanical engineering at Ruhr University Bochum and Texas A&M University in the USA. He was a research associate at the Chair of Design Technology/CAD at Saarland University from 1989 to 1994. After earning his doctorate, he took a position as a development engineer and project manager for car body systems development at Ford AG.

In 1997, Dr. Stark was appointed technical manager and in 2002 technical director of virtual product development and methods for Ford Motor Company Europe. Professor Stark has been head of the Chair of Industrial Information Technology at Technische Universität Berlin since 2008. From 2008 to 2021, he also served as director of virtual product development at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK) and from 2011 to 2013 as managing director of the Institute of Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF) at TU Berlin. Dr. Stark’s research focuses on virtual product development (processes, methods, and IT solutions for CCAx, PDM/PLM, DMU, AR/VR, digital factory, AI, and MBSE), digital twins, as well as data engineering & analytics.

He is a member of Germany’s National Academy of Science and Technology, WiGeP (Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Produktentwicklung), the Design Society, and CIRP ((International Academy for Production Engineering), as well as chair of the ProStTEP iViP Association. He is an active member of the VDI’s (Association of German Engineers) scientific advisory councils for product development and mechatronics as well as Industry 4.0.