An obituary for Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Käte Rosenberger

Born 4 Dec. 1939 Berlin | Died 25 July 2025 Leipzig

Professor Käte Rosenberger was appointed to the Chair of Engineering Design at the Faculty of Mechanical and Energy Engineering (part of the Faculty of Engineering since 2019) on 1 September 1993. Until her retirement in July 2005, Professor Rosenberger served the faculty several times as Dean of Studies and was a member of the Faculty Council for several legislative periods. Professor Rosenberger paid particular attention to fixture design and casting design in the mechanical engineering degree programme. She was a sought-after expert both in research and in the development of industrial applications, particularly in the computer-based calculation and design of technologically optimised cast constructions. Among other things, she supported the team of Prof Dr Peter Schulze (Chair of Machine Tools and Production) in the field of flask investment casting. She had already used software for solidification simulation and mould filling during her studies in order to optimise the design of castings. Prof. Schulze's team needed this expertise, as the cooling behaviour of a zinc melt in investment casting was to be influenced in order to improve quality.

Professor Johannes Zentner, now Professor of Design at the Faculty of Engineering and successor to Professor Rosenberger: "For me as her successor in office, she was a very important professional discussion partner and support, especially in the early years. Even after her retirement, she continued to be involved in teaching, particularly with courses on casting design. But she was also a very intelligent, profound and interesting dialogue partner beyond the narrower technical topics."

As Dean of Studies, Professor Rosenberger shaped the structure of the mechanical engineering degree programme at the faculty for many years. Among other things, she ensured that key subjects in mechanical engineering were filled by corresponding professorships. Many of today's professorships were largely initiated and designed by her. The good performance of the Mechanical Engineering degree programme in current rankings is largely due to her foresight and commitment in the 1990s and 2000s.

Prof Dr Peter Schulze (emeritus): "I greatly appreciated her always objective and goal-oriented work and was impressed by her wealth of ideas in solving the major challenges at the start of the mechanical engineering degree programme at our university."

At the beginning of the 2000s, as Dean of Studies, she successfully worked towards the first accreditations of the degree programmes. Her term as Dean of Studies also saw the conversion of the diploma degree programmes to the consecutive Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes. During this time, which she also played a key role in shaping, the current structure of our teaching in mechanical engineering with a highly regarded range of subjects was created. The international exchange in the Mechanical Engineering degree programme is also based on Professor Rosenberger's special commitment. Together with the former Dean, Prof Dr Wege, she initiated the exchange with the French Université d'Artois, which continues to this day. She was also very actively involved in the double degree programme with the University of the West of Scotland - Paisley, which enabled HTWK students to complete their studies in Scotland for many years. She was also instrumental in the development of the exchange with the IUT in Metz (France), where students of the faculty were able to complete a robotics internship until 2010, which was embedded in the course taught by Prof Dr Detlef Riemer.

In 2010, Professor Rosenberger received the Jakob Leupold Medal from HTWK Leipzig for her special services to the university, in recognition of her many years of commitment.

Stephan Schönfelder, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and on behalf of the entire faculty: "In Professor Rosenberger, we are losing a personality who had a significant influence on today's mechanical engineering studies, who also taught abroad after her retirement from the HTWK and who made a significant contribution to the reputation of our university. As the Faculty of Engineering, we will honour her memory."