Handover of Managing Directorship to Xinliang Feng 

Stuart Parkin hands over the leadership of the Institute after nine years in total as Managing Director, including further personnel appointments taking effect the same day.

To the point:

• Effective July 1, 2026, the role of the Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics transitions from Prof. Dr. Stuart Parkin to Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng.
• Years of progress: During his tenure, Parkin drove the Institute forward with vision, achieving important milestones; he remains Director of the NISE department.
• New appointments: Kathleen Arendt (Head of Administration), Dirk Sander (Research Coordination) also take up their roles on July 1, 2026.

A new chapter in the Institute's leadership team

Effective July 1, 2026, the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle transitions to a new leadership team. The role of Managing Director is being handed over from Stuart Parkin, who has led the Institute for the past years, to Xinliang Feng, Director of the Department of Synthetic Materials and Functional Devices (SMFD). The handover coincides with further personnel changes at the Institute, which take effect on the same date: Kathleen Arendt assumes the role as Head of Administration from retiring Andreas Berger and Dirk Sander takes over the additional role of Research Coordinator.

During his tenure as Managing Director, Parkin made significant contributions, driving the Institute forward with vision and achieving important milestones. He continues as Director of the Department of Nano-Systems from Ions, Spins and Electrons (NISE). Parkin, who joined the Institute from IBM Research Almaden, is a pioneer and world-renowned highly decorated scientist of spintronic materials and devices, underpinning much of today's "big data" infrastructure. Parkin’s work revolutionized hard-drive design: his spintronics innovations increased data density a thousand-fold, enabling the vast cloud-storage systems that underpin today’s digital world.

Chemistry as a route to new device functionality

Xinliang Feng joined the Institute in March 2021 from the Technical University of Dresden, where he continues to hold the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials. His department develops synthetic routes to novel low-dimensional materials: 2D polymers, covalent organic frameworks, graphene nanoribbons, and related carbon nanostructures aimed at applications in electronics, optoelectronics, and energy storage and conversion.

Feng has published over 910 research articles and holds over 80 patents, and has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate. His work has been recognized with a series of top-tier awards. In 2024, he was awarded an ERC Synergy Grant for the project 2DPolyMembrane, one of the European Research Council's most competitive funding instruments, supporting work on two-dimensional polymer membranes.

Institute welcomed the Federal Chancellor

The change in leadership also follows a notable moment in the Institute's public profile with the visit of Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz in November 2025. Friedrich Merz visited the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle as part of his inaugural visit to Reiner Haseloff, then Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt. An important milestone that Dirk Sander successfully orchestrated.

About the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics

The Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle (Saale) conducts research on novel nanostructured materials made from both inorganic and organic materials with useful functionalities.  The institute's research focuses on spintronics, nanophotonics, topological and synthetic materials with potential impact for data-centric and energy technologies. Founded in 1992, the Institute is one of more than 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society.