The Institute of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology welcomes Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jakub Kučka for the summer semester 2025. Mr. Kučka succeeds Prof. Böcker as head of the Department of Power Electronics and Electrical Drive Systems. We are very pleased that a worthy successor has been found for the Institute's third most funded department, who will continue to make optimum use of the department's excellent technical equipment in the future. He will start teaching “Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering B” in the summer semester - further lectures will be fine-tuned before then. We would like to take this opportunity to briefly introduce Mr. Kučka:
Mr. Kučka, born in 1991, studied Power Engineering and Management at the Technical University of Prague and graduated in 2014. He received his doctorate with distinction in 2019 with the topic “Quasi-Two-Level PWM Operation for Modular Multilevel Converters: Implementation, Analysis, and Application to Medium-Voltage Motor Drives” at Leibniz University Hannover. In 2021, he was honored with the “Semikron Young Engineer Award” for his contributions to quasi-two-level operation for modular multilevel converters. He also received the “Outstanding Young EPE Member Award” for his research work at the 2020 EPE conference. After completing his doctorate, he spent 21 months at the renowned EPFL Institute for Power Electronics in Lausanne. There he significantly broadened the focus of his research and gained a lot of experience in the development of medium-voltage prototypes, for example, as well as exploring other power electronics topics such as resonant converters and IGCTs. In November 2021, he moved to “Large Drive Applications, Siemens AG” in Erlangen to continue his career in industry as an R&D developer, as it was of great importance for him as a researcher in an applied science to understand the practical needs and challenges of industrial work.In parallel to his work in industry, he has been gaining teaching experience at Leibniz Universität Hannover since September 2023 with a lectureship on the topic of “Regulated grid converters”.
In his application, Mr. Kučka wrote: “In view of the developments in the energy sector, power electronics will continue to play a decisive role for a sustainable future in the long term. I am firmly convinced that this position will enable me to tackle the challenges ahead through excellent research and at the same time train new experts in the field.” The appointment committee agreed with this conviction and we look forward to his valuable contribution to our institute.
