Dirk Voelkel

Having been inspired by science fiction since childhood, Dr. Dirk Voelkel’s mission is to bring new science into products. He’s now tasked with Cytiva CTO, where he and the team are asking “why not?” and “how?” they can make healthcare more precise, using technology to benefit patients, researchers and clinicians and translating inventions into products.

More seriously, he manages innovation management for the business, ensuring great design and user experience for customers, R&D portfolio management as well innovation coaching for R&D teams.

Dirk joined Cytiva (named GE Healthcare Life Sciences at the time) in 2012, having been Head of Research and Technology at Roche Diagnostics Diabetes Care Mannheim from 2006 to 2012. During his 15 years at Roche Diagnostics he held different roles in R&D and business development.

During his career, Dirk has lived in California, Germany and Sweden. He speaks 3 languages which served him well when he was a technology scout in the San Francisco Bay area in the 2001-2005. Earlier he was inventive himself, resulting in several patents in his name.

Dirk earned his doctorate and diploma for Physics from the University of Göttingen. He performed his research in laser spectroscopy in the mid-IR at the Max Planck Institute for Fluid Dynamics (renamed to Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization) as well as at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA.