Oral History: Franz Seifert (2015)

Franz Seifert was born in Vienna, Austria on May 4, 1933. He joined the Vienna University of Technology in 1961 as a student and has been there ever since as a Research Engineer (1961-1967) at the Institute for Microwave Engineering, as a Senior Research Engineer (1967-1974) at the Institute for Physical Electronics Engineering, and following his habilitation in Electronics, as a Professor for Applied Electronics (since 1974). He received the Dr. techn. degree in 1965 under the supervision of Herbert König. Franz Seifert mentored numerous doctoral and habilitation students to become leaders in industry and academia in the field of electronics engineering, especially in the areas of (i) spread spectrum techniques, (ii) surface acoustic wave devices and their applications, and (iii) numerical modeling of fields and waves. Franz Seifert passed away in his house in Vienna on February 7, 2016.

In this interview Seifert describes his childhood in Vienna and in Mittersill, his education in Vienna, his family, his research work, and his cooperation with partners, especially with Siemens in the surface acoustic wave arena.