Prof. Dr. Ingrid Schirmer (née Ingrid Wetzel−she married in 2006) is Head of the Research Group “IT-Design and Gender Perspective” at the Informatics Department (Core Area Complex Systems Engineering) of the University of Hamburg. Her research fields include Enterprise Architecture Management, Digital Transformation in Business Ecosystems and IT-Governance from a socio-technical perspective.
As one of the initiators of the cooperative inter-university platform „ahoi.digital” – the alliance of Hamburg universities for IT in digitalization, founded in 2017 –, she is a member of the coordination committee responsible for launching and instituting the platform. The alliance aims at developing IT in Hamburg by planning 35 new tenure informatics professorships and as many as 1,500 additional college places in informatics on a high excellence level as well as establishing Hamburg as a top IT location.
In 2016 and 2017, she was a member of the Select Committee for funding the “internationalization of top clusters, future projects and similar networks” for the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
From 2012 until 2014, Prof. Schirmer was Principal of the Department of Informatics and was particularly involved in its strategical reform. Subsequently, she was Vice Principal of the Department until the beginning of 2018. Since the winter semester of 2018/2019 she is a deputy member in the newly founded department council. Prof. Schirmer was in addition initiator of the Master’s Degree Course “IT-Management and -Consulting” (running since winter semester 2010/11). The course involves cooperation with currently 23 renowned commercial enterprises in Hamburg, besides the Hamburg chamber of commerce and “hamburg@work”. In 2009, Prof. Schirmer spent a research term at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and at the University of Washington, Seattle. Additionally, she participated in a research exchange with Boeing and Microsoft.
Prof. Schirmer was a professor of software engineering from 2002 until 2004 at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen, heading the international women’s informatics degree course. Previously she was a guest professor at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz in Austria, worked as a freelance software developer and IT-consultant, contributed to the “international women’s university” at EXPO 2000 and was an exchange research member at the Boeing Research Lab (Seattle) during 1999/2000. From 1994-2001, she worked as a post-doc in the Software Engineering Group. She received her doctorate at the Database and Information Systems Group of the Department of Informatics at the University of Hamburg in 1994.
Professor Schirmer is in possession of three university degrees. In 1990, she attained the “Diplom” in Computer Science at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität of Frankfurt on Main. Previously, she received the First State Examination (a teaching degree) at grammar school level in mathematics and protestant religious studies and the First State Examination at secondary school level in music education.
Professor Schirmer is a Lieutenant-Colonel in Reserve and ordered by the Command of Cyber- and Information Space of the Federal Armed Forces. Since 2008, she is a deputy member of the Corporate Commission of the faculty-comprehensive center for natural science and peace studies of the University of Hamburg. Moreover, Professor Schirmer was appointed curate of the Protestant Church of Hessen and Nassau in 1986. Since 2018 she is a member of the II. Synod of the Protestant-Lutheran Church in North Germany.
