2009
Michael Paetau, born in Hamburg, Germany, is senior scientist in "Fraunhofer Institut für Intelligente Analyse und Informationssysteme (IAIS)" in Sankt Augustin, Germany, near Bonn. He graduated as sociologist after studying sociology, philosophy, economics and history in Hamburg and Marburg, Germany. He took his doctor degree in social and economic science (Dr. rer.pol.) at the University of Bremen with a thesis on "Human-Machine-Communication" 1989. Since 1998 he is member of the "Research Committee on Sociocybernetics (RC51)" of the "International Sociological Association" (ISA), since 2006 as a board-member. Since 2008 he is head of the "Center of Sociocybernetics Studies Bonn" and president of the Association "Cultures of Knowledge" (Wissenskulturen e.V.).
2004 – 2005 Professor for Media and Communication Science at the University of Siegen, Faculty for Literatures, Languages and Media and 2002 – 2004 Professor for Communication Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen, Faculty for Literatures and Languages.
1999 - 2002 Speaker of the research department «Informed Sustainability« of the Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems of the "German National Research Center for Information Technology (GMD)". 1998 – 2002 he was head of the research team «Social Systems« of the GMD-Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems, and 1995 - 1998 head of the research team «Culture - Media - Technology« of the GMD-Institute for Applied Information Technology.