Prof. Rolf Henke is the Representative Aviation of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center, DLR.

He studied aerospace sciences at the TU Berlin. In 1985 he started his industrial career at Messerschmidt Boelkow Blohm MBB, today Airbus. His academic path began in the 1990s when he gave lectures in aeronautics at the Hochschule Bremen parallel to his activities in industry. In early 2006 he became full professor and head of the Institute of Aerospace Technology ILR at the Technical University of Rhineland Westphalia RWTH in Aachen, where he still acts as lecturer. In 2010 he left RWTH Aachen to become member of the DLR Executive Board in Cologne, responsible for aviation until 2020.

Alongside his professional career, he has been member of the board and of the senate of the German Aerospace Society, DGLR, since 2004 and since 2013 he is DGLR President. Furthermore, Professor Henke actively participates in European Aviation Research Initiatives. In 2011 he was involved in drafting “Flightpath 2050”, the European vision for aviation and he is one of the three co-chairs of ACARE, the Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe. Among other duties he is member of the Leadership Team of IFAR, the International Forum for Aviation Research, editor-in-chief of the CEAS Aeronautics Journal, and “correspondant” of the French Aerospace Academy AAE.