Matthias Purschke is the Managing Director, Member of the Board of the DGZfP and President of the 19^th WCNDT in 2016.

Matthias Purschke, born in 1957, studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, where he also worked as research fellow for the Institute of General Electrical Engineering. His doctoral thesis dealt with methods of digital image restoration for the improvement of radioscopic images. After being awarded a PhD in 1989, he has been the head of the research and development department of a German X-ray equipment manufacturer. He was responsible for the development of industrial X-ray methods, like digital image processing, X-ray detectors, computer tomography and their industrial applications.

2006 he joined the position as Executive Director and Member of the Board of the German Society for Non-Destructive testing (DGZfP). He is the head of the DGZfP Certification Body for NDT Personnel. Since 2008 he has been a member of the ICNDT Executive Committee, and since 2012 he has served as President of the EFNDT. He is also a member of the German Accreditation Committee and of the international Working Groups of ICNDT and EFNDT dealing with Certification of NDT personnel.

Gerd Dobmann, born in 1946, was employed from 1976 to 2011at the Fraunhofer Society. He is Senior Scientific Consultant and a member of DGZfP, ASTM, ASM, IET, BINDT and Academia NDT.

He studied Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering. He graduated in Applied Physics in 1979. From 1976 to 2011 Dr. Dobmann has been employed at the Fraunhofer Society, first as head of the scientific working group “Electrical, Magnetic and Thermal Techniques in NDT” and then later as head of the department “Electromagnetic Techniques in NDE”. He was the deputy of the Institute Director and Division director “NDT developments for Lifetime Management”. He published more than 300 scientific papers and holds German, European, U. S. and Japanese Patents. In 2005 Dr. Dobmann was honored with the graduate degree “Dr.-Ing. E.h.” by the School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Kassel. In 2011 he was honoured with the graduate degree “Prof. Ing. E.h.” by the Polytechnical Selesian University, Glivice/Katovice and the “Roy Sharpe Award” by BINDT in 2012.

Anton Erhard born in 1950, is head of the BAM Department 3 "Containment Systems for Dangerous Goods" and and a member of the board of the DGZfP, of the German "Reactor Safety Commission (RSK)" and of the German Commission for the “Transportation of Dangerous Goods”.

He studied material science with special emphasis on metal physics at the Technical University of Berlin. Since 1976 he has been employed at Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) in Berlin at the sub-department “Non-destructive Testing; acoustical and electrical methods”. He received his PhD in Engineering Sciences from the Technical University 1982. His scientific work was honoured with two awards in 1984 by the German Society of Non-Destructive Testing (DGZfP) and 1985 by the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT). In more than 200 publications and lectures the scientific results are presented to a broad number of colleagues of the scientific community. He is a member of the board of the DGZfP, of the German "Reactor Safety Commission (RSK)" and of the German Commission for the “Transportation of Dangerous Goods”. Further he is a member in many NDT advisory boards and technical committees and also lecturer at the Technical University of Berlin for Nondestructive Testing. Since 2006 Dr. Erhard is head of the BAM Department 3 “Containment Systems for Dangerous Goods”.

Marc Kreutzbruck is an NDT-chair at the University of Stuttgart and a member of the Executive Commitee of the Institut für Kunststofftechnik (IKT). He is a member of many NDT-related advisory boards, technical committee and also visiting scientist at BAM.

He received his Ph. D and the habilitation degree in applied physics from the University of Giessen 1998 and 2005, respectively. His applied research began 1995 within the field of superconductivity, where he studied the use of superconducting devices (SQUID) as an utmost sensitive magnetic field sensor for nondestructive testing applications. Besides fundamental research in nanotechnology and magnetic sensors his research was later on also dealing with the acoustic, thermal, or coupled NDT techniques. This also involves signal processing, imaging and pattern recognition, and solving the inverse problem to transfer the detected physical properties into the mechanical condition of the component. Since 2007 he was the head of the NDT division 8.4 at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) focusing the acoustic, electromagnetic and thermal methods. Since September 2014 he accepted a NDT-chair at the University of Stuttgart joining the Executive Commitee of the Institut für Kunststofftechnik (IKT). He is a member of many NDT-related advisory boards, technical committee and also visiting scientist at BAM.

Martin Spies is a researcher and lecturer at IZFP with a focus on physics and simulation for multimodal NDT. He is a member of the counselling board of the DGZfP and of various DGZfP committees of experts.

He studied Physics at University of Saarland and at University of Kaiserslautern as well as Materials Science at University of Houston, Texas. In 2001, Dr. Spies has been awarded the academic Venia Legendi in the field of Nondestructive Testing at University of Saarland, Saarbruecken. He is based in Germany’s Fraunhofer Society since the late 1980s – after 20 years at the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP in Saarbruecken, he joined the mathematics institute ITWM in October 2007, engaging in simulation-based ultrasonic imaging techniques with specific emphasis on defect testing and materials characterisation. Since January 2015 he accepted a research and lecturing position at IZFP with additional emphasis on physics and simulation for multimodal NDT. His scientific work, documented in more than 180 publications, has been honored with two awards in 2009 by the German Society of Non-Destructive Testing DGZfP and in 2011 by the German Copper Institute.