Rudolf Schaefer received the diploma degree in Materials Science and the Ph.D. degree in Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg (Germany) in 1985 and 1990, respectively. He then joined the IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights (USA) and the Forschungszentrum Juelich (Germany) as a Postdoc in 1991 and 1992, respectively. In 1993 Rudolf Schaefer moved to the IFW Dresden (now the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden, Germany) where he became head of the department "Magnetic Microstructures" in 2002. In 2011, Dr. Schaefer was appointed honorary professor for Magnetic Materials at the Institute for Materials Science at Technical University Dresden. His areas of interest span magnetic materials with a focus on magnetic microstructures and domain imaging by Kerr microscopy. He has published more than 130 technical articles in peer-reviewed journals, including book chapters, and together with Alex Hubert he has coauthored the textbook "Magnetic Domains". Prof. Schaefer currently chairs the technical committee for "Magnetic Imaging" of the IEEE Society.