Merve Karamara is a research associate and PhD candidate at the building.lab of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at OTH Regensburg. Her doctoral work, supervised by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Linner and Prof. Obergrießer, focuses on the selective automation of construction processes — with a particular emphasis on concrete 3D printing as a route to ecologically and economically sustainable building.
She joined the building.lab in October 2022 after completing a Master’s in Digital Construction at OTH Regensburg. Since the winter semester of 2023/24 she has taught the course Application-Oriented Robotics — Cobots in Crafts with Focus on 3D Printing at the Regensburg School of Digital Sciences (RSDS) as part of the CyberCraft Kolleg, where she serves as a coach alongside Marc Schmailzl. In 2024 she carried out a research stay at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Institute for Automation.
Born in Middle Franconia to a Turkish family, Karamara’s path — from a vocational training as a draughtswoman through dual study at TH Nuremberg to a doctorate — earned her a nomination as “Inspiration of the Year” by Netzwerk Chancen for encouraging others from working-class backgrounds into academic careers.