Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication SystemsHead of the ESPRI division
Focus areas
- Public safety and early warning systems
- Location-based services
- Information logistics
Profile
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Meissen heads the Electronic Safety and Security Systems for the Public and Industries (ESPRI) business unit at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS. He studied industrial engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and Trinity College Dublin.
His studies focused on operations research, artificial intelligence and environmental engineering.
After graduating as an industrial engineer, Prof. Dr. Meissen worked as an IT manager for Versicherungskammer Bayern, where he managed development projects in the field of damage assessment.
He has been a scientist at Fraunhofer since 2000, specializing in information logistics, event-based architectures and early warning systems. His dissertation deals with effective alerting technologies in early warning systems. During his research activities, he was significantly involved in numerous national and international projects in the field of early warning systems and hazard prevention. Among other things, he led the WIND project, a severe weather warning system that has become the most successful commercial severe weather warning system in Europe with around 2.5 million registered users. He also worked as a consultant for central systems engineering in the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS).
He is currently responsible for the further development of the KATWARN population warning system, which has been introduced in numerous cities and districts in Germany (including Nuremberg, Berlin and Hamburg). Due to his research activities and many years of practical experience, he is a key expert in public warning systems and networked security within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.