iL-ALUMNI
December 19, 2023
iL alumni Ralph Eckstein:
"Super team spirit"
In the second part of our alumni series, we profile former iL doctoral student Ralph Eckstein. Eckstein, who was born in Karlsruhe on September 28, 1984, conducted research at InnovationLab for five years between 2012 and 2017. His doctoral thesis is entitled "Aerosol Jet Printed Electronic Devices and Systems". Ralph was supervised at the time by Professor Uli Lemmer, now Scientific Managing Director at iL, and by the then group leader Dr. Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa of the Light Technology Institute of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He has been working for the world's largest manufacturer of dental products and dental technology since November 2017. Dentsply Sirona is based in Bensheim on the Bergstrasse and is listed on the US stock exchange with its parent company in Charlotte, North Carolina.
There are two reasons for Ralph to pay a flying visit to Speyerer Strasse 4: firstly, there was a barbecue to celebrate Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa's new professorship, and secondly, Ralph came to Bahnstadt especially to talk about his earlier iL days and his professional career.
The memories of the iL are mostly positive. "The clusters and these university teams were incredibly great at the time," Ralph reports with a subtle but meaningful smile on his face, "we always helped each other out and sometimes said, 'please do the measurement for me', for example when it came to surface analyses or results in scanning electron microscopy."
The interdisciplinary working atmosphere was a special feature that everyone appreciated.
Door to door, corridor to corridor
The universities from Karlsruhe, Braunschweig, Darmstadt, Heidelberg and Mannheim work and live next door to each other, corridor to corridor, and use laboratories like offices. An inspiring exchange takes place. Inevitably. "There was a great team spirit, good cooperation. We didn't see each other as competitors, but as complements," Ralph recalls the early days of iL, "it was perfect for this phase of my life." Of course, they also celebrated together. Back then, Ralph was a member of a band for a while, which really got things going at parties.
The doctoral and later post-doc phase was super interesting. Instructive, intensive, with countless ten-hour days, wide-ranging and, with the links to industry, simply mega exciting. "Photodiodes were my thing. There was a lot to do, such as setting up measurement labs. There was also the question of how inkjet could be combined with aerosol jet printing," says Ralph, giving an insight into the lines of research into printed and flexible optoelectronics, which was also the subject of his dissertation. He found the topic together with lighting expert Gerardo. "There were endless possibilities," Ralph sums up, "you really had freedom and the main challenge was to justify the fact that we now wanted to print digitally, transparently and flexibly."
The contact with iL and KIT remains unchanged: Ralph Eckstein (left) and his former scientific supervisor Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa (right) at a joint restaurant visit in Bahnstadt. Picture: InnovationLab
Ralph Eckstein in brief
Career stages
Since 03/2021:
Product Owner at Dentsply Sirona in Bensheim
11/2017 - 02/2021:
Project Manager at Dentsply Sirona in Bensheim
09/2017 - 10/2017:
Application Engineer at Allegro Microsystems in Heidelberg
2016/2017:
Post-doc at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) at the InnovationLab
2013 - 2016:
Graduate program at the Karlsruhe School of Optics & Photonics (KSOP)
2012 - 2016:
Doctoral thesis "Aerosol Jet Printed Electronic Devices and Systems" at KIT (Professor Uli Lemmer, Dr. Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa), KIT and iL site Heidelberg
2010/2011:
Six-month industrial internship in Santiago/Chile
2009:
Erasmus Mundus, semester abroad in Material Science at the Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona
2005 - 2012:
Studied electronics engineering and information technology at KIT, graduated with a diploma, thesis "Investigation of hybrid tandem solar cells based on CIGS and PH3HT:PCPM"
2004:
Abitur at Humboldt-Gymnasium Karlsruhe
Private
Ralph Eckstein, born on September 28, 1984 in Karlsruhe.
He lives in Dossenheim with his wife Claudia, who comes from Chile, and their two children Emilia (8) and Luca (2). Claudia studied industrial engineering and works at the Institute of Physics at the University of Heidelberg. The couple met in Barcelona, initially had a long-distance relationship and married in December 2012.
Ralph's hobbies:
Music (drums and guitar), sport (running, cycling), working with wood.
"Don't always be the specialist"
However, there came a time when industrial partners such as Merck or BASF gradually withdrew from topics such as OLEDs or liquid production in general. The industry's interest waned. In addition, he had spent a long time in a clean room in a full-body suit during his main studies, as a doctoral student and post-doc. "I wanted to change this condition for myself. I didn't always want to be the specialist, I wanted to think outside the box and look for something new for myself," says Ralph, explaining his thoughts at the time.
Be that as it may, the fabulous episode at the InnovationLab ended in summer 2017 when Dr. Ralph Eckstein, Magna cum Laude, looked for a job in established industry and ended up as an application engineer at Allegro Microsystems in Heidelberg. The developer and manufacturer of integrated circuits is primarily active in the automotive industry and specializes in high-performance sensor ICs such as Hall-effect sensors for the automotive industry. The break comes after two months. Why? "I was involved in analyses for feasibility studies - so again, a lot of simulation and too much lab work. I chalk it up to valuable experience."
From November 2017, he ended up at Dentsply Sirona, a large dental company with around 16,200 employees worldwide. The merger between Dentsply, founded in 1899, and the former Siemens subsidiary Sirona Dental Systems officially took place in February 2016. Ralph is one of around 4,000 employees and developers at the Bensheim site and has been working there for almost three and a half years as a project manager for extraoral X-ray devices, which are used to examine teeth, bite position, tooth roots, nerve canals, etc. It extends to 3D panoramic images of the dentition. Dentsply Sirona has its own production line in Bensheim, and Ralph comes into contact with product and risk management, hardware and software development, regulatory affairs, controlling and approval authorities in addition to production. "You have to deal with different types of people, with people from production as well as software developers and try to bring all the threads together and actually get a product on the road in the end," says Ralph, describing the multifaceted job profile.
Realignment at Dentsply Sirona
In coronavirus times, the company decides to realign itself. New development methods are introduced and "no stone is left unturned". This also meant that domains and roles changed significantly. The previous company became an agile matrix organization with a focus on cloud applications. "To put it bluntly, such an organization no longer has a traditional project manager," says Ralph.
In the course of the aforementioned restructuring, he is given a new challenge as Product Owner. In agile, incremental development, a product is never really finished. Product development is constantly being challenged, incrementally improved and planned at short notice in order to be able to react quickly. "We are currently working on a cloud-based service application, i.e. data that we use for the condition of the device and service optimization," we learn about his day-to-day work. Whether X-ray machines, grinding machines for crowns, scanners for digital dental impressions or 3D printers - the dental company from Bensheim can do a lot. And there is a very good chance that you will be sitting on a Sirona chair as a treatment unit at your trusted dentist.
Time out from his demanding job at Dentsply Sirona: Ralph loves to spend time with his family of four and his dog "Charlie".
Picture: InnovationLab
A little bit of InnovationLab
Dentsply Sirona also supplies laboratories, dental associations and umbrella organizations, particularly in the USA, although the bottom line is that dentists are the end users. With plenty of processes available for in-house development, it can be said with a wink that Dentsply Sirona's portfolio includes a little bit of "InnovationLab".
What advice can someone like Ralph Eckstein give his successors at iL in Heidelberg from his current perspective? He can only "recommend" the talent factory to everyone. Additional qualifications and soft skills such as project management, working in a team, conflict management and planning strategies are immensely important - all the pieces of the puzzle belong together and interlock with regard to a later professional career. Ralph considers the simple and fundamental questions to be a central aspect: How does the project work? Who and what do I need for it? What materials do I work with? How much time and how many repetitions do I need? What do I want to do with it? Thinking in terms of the desired result or the hoped-for goal is never wrong. Just like a classic project.
What can iL do more and differently at the site?
And what should and could iL do more and differently at the location? There is no doubt that providing the same infrastructure as back then will also be essential in the future. "In my opinion, it is important for iL to support young people and position itself as a coach. Especially when it comes to soft skills such as presentations, seminars and expectation management, it's important to take a closer look and always think outside the box." It is constructive criticism that Ralph offers afterwards. "That would have been cool to get to know the iL world even better. On the other hand, the networking outside of the purely technical topics always worked really well here. I would do it again. This spirit and learning process of people who are all the same age and develop ideas is what counts," says Ralph, summing up a stage in his career that brought him together with what felt like "eternal" iL employees such as Tanja Benedict, Michaela Sauer, Janusz Schinke and "permanent guests" such as Uli Lemmer, Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa, Marta Ruscello and Tobias Rödlmeier.
Memories of the iL times between 2012 and 2017: Ralph playing the ever-popular table football. Picture: InnovationLab
The man who was "always drawn further north"
One advantage for the popular Ralph: the 39-year-old lives in Dossenheim with his Chilean wife Claudia, a graduate industrial engineer, and their two children Emilia (8 years) and Luca (2). The children are growing up bilingual. German and Spanish. Luca now speaks fluent "Esperanto", but that is a completely different story.
Ralph, the man from Fächerstädter, who was drawn "further and further north" via Karlsruhe, Barcelona (where he met Claudia), Chile (industrial internship), Heidelberg and Bensheim, as he humorously puts it, is always welcome with his family at InnovationLab. The distances are not far, the memories are entertaining. And worthwhile for everyone...
Joachim Klaehn
Head of Communications
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