Holger Militz

Holger Militz (born in 1960) is a German wood scientist and professor at the University of Goettingen, who is an elected fellow (FIAWS) of the International Academy of Wood Science.

Biography
Militz was born in 1960 in Waldbröl, a small town in the countryside, in Germany.

He pursued his studies in wood science at the University of Hamburg. He then completed his PhD work in 1990 at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, focusing on enhancing the impregnation of wood through anatomical cell wall changes.

Between 1987 and 2000, he held positions in the Netherlands, initially serving as the head of wood technology at TNO Timber Research and later becoming the director of SHR Timber Research in Wageningen.

Militz along with his research corkers started up during the 90's at SHR the first feasible pilot plant, leading thus to the scaling-up of the today-commercial wood acetylation process, that had been initiated by American chemist, Alfred J. Stamm during the 1940's at FPL.

Since 2000, he has held the position of a full professor at Wood Biology and Wood Products in the Georg-August-University in Göttingen. He has been a part-time professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences since 2010.

His main research interests include wood decay, wood protection and especially, wood modification applying green technologies. He possesses over 600 publications in many scientific journals and book articles in the area of wood science and technology.

Militz has won several awards for his yearlong work in the area of wood products and wood modification. He has been an active member of the editorial boards of the international wood journals, Holzforschung, Wood Research, and Holztechnologie, while he is the chairman of the ECWM - Wood Modification in Europe since 2001.

In October 2023, a meta-research carried out by John Ioannidis et al.,. at Stanford University included Holger Militz in Elsevier Data 2022, where he was ranked in the top 2% of researchers in wood science (forestry – materials), having a c-score of 3.495, one of the highest three in this scientific area.

Awards

 * Honorary award, IRG Wood Protection, Australia (2023)
 * Ternryd prize university Växjö, Sweden (2016)
 * Josef-Umdasch Forschungspreis, Vienna (2012)
 * Schweighofer-Prize for the development of an innovative new material (2007)