Prof. Dr.-Ing. Valentin Plenk received a diploma in electrical engineering from Technical University of Munich. After graduating as Diplom-Ingenieur in 1991 he joined the team of the institute for Precision Engineering and Micro Technology as a researcher.
In this function he worked in various projects. Two that stand out are SFB 336 der TU München and the Brite/Euram 2 project BRE20628. In 1996 he passed his doctorate in the department of mechanical engineering of the Technical University of Munich in the field of surface roughness measurements.
1996 he took up a position as developing engineer hard- and software with Karl Süss KG in Garching. One of his achievements was a 150% increase in machine troughput in the main product line by optimizing the control software program.
1997 he started to manage the hard- and software group at Karl Süss’ Garching plant. He supervised 10 developers in his group and improved the engineering processes for special purpose machines. The job also required close cooperation with and frequent visits to the subsidiary in Burlington, Vermont.
Since October 2000 Valentin Plenk teaches control engineering as a full professor at Hof University.
After various small research projects he was elected Dean of the Engineering Department and managed the department from 2003 to 2007 and 2009 to 2015. In his second term he headed the reorganization process that integrated the former textile department into the Engineering Department.
Since January 2016 he has been leading the research team for Cyber-Physical Systems at Hof University’s Institute of Information Systems (iisys).
From October 1, 2017 to October 1, 2020 he was the scientific head of the Institute of Information Systems (iisys).
Since October 1, 2020 he is Vice President Research and Development.