Thomas Heyn was born in 1970. He received his degree in electrical engineering (Dipl.Ing.) from the Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen in 1996.

He joined Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in 1996 where he has been working in several national and international projects in the area of telecommunication and satellite and terrestrial digital broadcasting systems for contracting authorities as well as industrial partners. He is head of the Connectivity Group within the Broadcast and Broadband Department and member of the networld2020 European Technology Platform and active in 3GPP RAN Standardization.

His current research interests include future mobile networks investigating 4G LTE-A technologies and its evolutions towards 5G as well as the integration of satellite in 5G.