Prof. Ulrich Rückert received the diploma degree (MSc), with honours in computer science, and a Dr.-Ing. degree (PhD), with honours in electrical engineering, both from the University of Dortmund, Germany, in 1984 and 1989, respectively. He joined the Department of Electronic Components, University of Dortmund, in 1985, where he developed the first VLSI implementations of artificial neural networks in Europe. In February 1990, he accepted a position as Senior Researcher at the Department of Electronic Components, University of Dortmund. From 1993 to 1995, he was Associate Professor of microelectronics and CAD (computer aided design) at the Research Centre for Information and Communication Technology of the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. From 1995 until 2009 he was Full Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Paderborn. As a member of the Heinz Nixdorf Institute, he held the chair in “System and Circuit Technology”.

Since 2009, he is Full Professor at the Cognitive Interaction Technology Centre of Excellence at Bielefeld University heading the research group Cognitronics and Sensor Systems. His main research interests are bio-inspired architectures for nanotechnologies and cognitive robotics. Rückert was founding organizer of the International Workshop on Microelectronics for Neural Networks: MicroNeuro, (Dortmund 1990, München 1991, Edinburgh 1992, Granada 1995, Lausanne 1996, Dresden 1997). He is chairman of the national Special Interest Group “Microelectronics for neural networks” of the ITG (German Information Technology Society) in Germany. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 journal and conference publications and holds three patents.