Effective November 1, 2025, Del Galdo will oversee the division of Development Center X-ray Technology, Engineering of Adaptive Systems, Communication Systems, and Smart Sensing and Electronics at Fraunhofer IIS. He succeeds Albert Heuberger, who previously led those divisions. Heuberger will concentrate on his duties as managing director of the institute and as the spokesperson for the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics.
Del Galdo is a longstanding member of the Fraunhofer community and has been working at Fraunhofer IIS for almost 20 years. For the last 13 years, he has been based at the Ilmenau location, where he led the Electronic Measurements and Signal Processing (EMS) department. He will strengthen the institute management team as another expert in the field of microelectronics, with a focus on sensors, signal processing, and wireless communications.
“As a professor of information technology at one of the world's most innovative universities, Del Galdo will continue and deepen the close partnership between Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Fraunhofer IIS — two driving forces behind the innovative strength of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region,” says Joachim Hornegger, President of FAU.
“Giovanni Del Galdo is a distinguished research scientist whose outstanding expertise will greatly enrich the institute management team. His many years of experience and his interdisciplinary approach will open up additional opportunities for the institute to drive innovation and advance its world-class applied research in microelectronics and information-technology system solutions. His close ties to FAU will help him strengthen the strategic partnership between these two key players in the German research ecosystem. For decades, the partnership between Fraunhofer IIS and FAU has ensured the successful knowledge transfer from university research to practical application,” says Holger Hanselka, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Outstanding research expertise for the institute management of Fraunhofer IIS
Giovanni Del Galdo was born in Merano, Italy, in 1977. After graduating in telecommunications engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, he began his academic career in 2002 by pursuing a doctorate at Technische Universität Ilmenau. Since 2007, he has contributed his expertise to Fraunhofer IIS, initially in the Audio and Media Technologies division in Erlangen. In 2012, he was appointed a professor at Technische Universität Ilmenau and became head of the Digital Broadcasting and Distributed Systems (DVT) research group. In 2018, the research group was renamed Electronic Measurements and Signal Processing and elevated to a Fraunhofer IIS department, which Del Galdo went on to lead.
During his 18 years at Fraunhofer IIS, Del Galdo developed deep technical expertise in electronic measurement technology and signal processing, as well as extensive experience in securing industry and public-sector contracts. He also contributed to numerous significant patents.
At Fraunhofer IIS, Del Galdo will share responsibility with his fellow directors for the institute’s focus areas: microelectronics, sensors and data collection, and signal processing and transmission. Together with Albert Heuberger, Bernhard Grill, and Alexander Martin, he will help shape the future of Fraunhofer’s largest institute, based in Erlangen, starting November 1, 2025.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
