I have been financend for three years by the DFG (the main German research fond) within the priority program SPP 1253 which is about the optimization of partial differential equations. This support and the possibility to work on the research project Optimization of Electro-Mechanical Smart Structures is grateful acknowledged. As a fourth year to finish my Ph.D. was planned, we applied for a second funding period which was unfortunately refused - it turned out, that actually all engineers were cut off this mathematical program.
Fortunately I got an offer by Prof. Michael Stingl for a full time position. I now work within the Excellence Cluster Engineering of Adcanced Materials. My tasks are closely related to what I am already doing (including the software basis CFS++) and after concurrently finishing my PhD I will continue as a postdoc. Formally I am now employed by the Chair of Applied Mathematics II of Prof. Leugering who was also one of the project leaders of the funded project.
Nevertheless, my PhD advisors have not changed. This is Prof. Manfred Kaltenbacher now in Klagenfurt/ Austria (check the first link - this is a real Austrian title concatenation :) ) and Prof. Eberhard Bänsch, head of the Chair for Applied Mathematics III. So in some sense I am also still a member of this chair.
Furthermore I did no loose my ties to the Chair of Sensor Technology as Prof. Lerch offered me to keep my desk there and I want to be there once a week.
So I am rather split/ networked/ ... and somehow more "mathematically oriented" - but note that I am still an engineer (having even two of such degrees) :)
