Organizer
 

Prof. Dr. Reinhold Schäfer, Fachhochschule Wiesbaden - University of Applied Sciences, Wiesbaden, Germany

Biography

Dr. Reinhold Schäfer received his Diploma in Physics at University of Mainz/Germany in 1972 and a doctorate at the University of Mainz, Institute for Biophysics in 1979. He is now Professor for database systems, methods of artificial intelligence, and automation at the Fachhochschule Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences, Germany. He is also working for major pharmaceutical, LIMS and automation companies since 1973.

His research interests include computer integration of a fully automated analytical laboratory ("Wiesbaden Computer Integrated Laboratory (WICIL)"). He and his group developed expert systems for dynamic scheduling and automated decision support, a high level language with graphical programming of sample preparation and sample management, simulation and animation of a generic chemical workbench including any kind of co-operation between robots and instruments. During his sabbatical at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1997/98 he developed an architecture for an integrated automation in laboratories. Additional projects of Dr. Schäfers group the integration of LIMS and lab automation in a distributed system and a standard for the adaptation of instruments to computers, called System Capability Dataset (SCD). This has become an ASTM- and OMG-standard for plug-and-play adaptation in a 24-7-operation (associated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA). Other activities are the automated error detection and recovery systems with a high level end user interface, automated optimized path planning of cooperating robots at work benches with collision avoidance, and plug-and-play technology for instruments using JINI as well as a variety of XML projects to model instruments.

Dr. Schäfer supervised more than 80 graduate theses since 1989. In addition Dr. Schäfer designed and implemented a multilingual LIMS with stability analyses management for pharmaceutical industry, a software package to support the generation, translation, and distribu-tion of analytical procedures. Other research interests include data warehousing and online analytical processing (OLAP) with data mining, monitoring for research and development projects, quality information management, and packaging material film generation. In total, Dr. Schäfer designed and implemented about 35 corporate IT solutions for pre-clinical, clinical applications, QC, and shop floor automation in a global operating Pharmaceutical company between 1973 and 1989. He served as a member of the editorial board of the "Laboratory Automation and Information Management" journal. Dr. Schäfer was also a member of the Scientific Committees of the LabAutomation Conferences in San Diego/Palm Springs and the International LIMS Conference in Europe. He was chairman of the International LIMS Conference 1999 in Basel, Switzerland, the German LIMS Conference 2000 in Berlin, Germany, and the European LIMS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, in 2004. Since 2005 Dr. Schäfer is member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Laboratory Automation.

Dr. Schäfer presented his work at many international conferences and wrote articles about LIMS and laboratory automation. He also gives short courses about robotics, lab automation, and enterprise-wide system integration in Europe and USA. He is member of several professional institutions.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Reinhold Schäfer
Fachhochschule Wiesbaden
University of Applied Sciences
Computer Science Department
Kurt-Schumacher-Ring 18
D-65197 Wiesbaden Germany
Tel: +49-611-9495-224 or -201
Fax: +49-611-9495-210
Email: schaefer@informatik.fh-wiesbaden.de
WWW: http://fh-web1.informatik.fh-wiesbaden.de/fb06/schaefer