Pascale Ehrenfreund Begins Leadership Role at the DLR

Pascale Ehrenfreund, new chair of the DLR executive board. Photo: DLR

[Via Satellite 08-17-2015] Pascale Ehrenfreund took office as chair of the German Aerospace Center’s (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) executive board on Aug. 17. She begins her leadership role at the DLR, which has approximately 8,000 employees.

Ehrenfreund was appointed to a five-year term by the DLR senate on June 18. She succeeds Johann-Dietrich Woerner, who recently became director general of the European Space Agency (ESA) after chairing the DLR executive board from March 2007 to June 2015.

“As a research facility, space agency and project management agency, DLR is a unique institution with an immense potential for synergy,” said Ehrenfreund. “And DLR can contribute even more, provided we intensify cooperation across all areas to tap into this potential. Furthermore, I intend to focus on strengthening DLR’s scientific profile and its European and international ties to achieve our objectives.”

Ehrenfreund is a research professor at the Space Policy Institute of George Washington University in the United States and, until taking office at DLR, was president of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).