Our long-standing colleague and friend,

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Frank H. Lutz (1968 – 2023),

passed away unexpectedly on November 10, 2023.

After studying mathematics in Tübingen and London, Frank received his doctorate from TU Berlin in 1999. For his dissertation “Triangulated Manifolds with Few Vertices and Vertex-Transitive Group Actions,” he was awarded the Richard Rado Prize by the “Discrete Mathematics Group” of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (DMV) the following year.

He completed his habilitation in 2005 at TU Berlin on the topic of “Constructive, Enumerative, and Randomized Methods in Computational Topology.” After stints in Berkeley, Dortmund, Cottbus, and Copenhagen, Frank returned to Berlin in 2014. His research was dedicated to combinatorial topology and its applications. He led the MATH+ project ‘The Structure within Disordered Cellular Materials’ and served as a supervisor or mentor for several students at the Berlin Mathematical School (BMS).

With the passing of Frank Lutz, we lose an excellent researcher, a passionate educator, a loving individual, and for many of us, a very good friend.

Our thoughts are with his family.

Obituary (in German) from the Institute of Mathematics, TU Berlin.