Oliver Bäumchen is Chair of Experimental Physics V

Bäumchen studied physics at Saarland University in Saarbrücken and received his doctorate there in 2010. Equipped with a DFG research fellowship, he moved to McMaster University in Canada in 2011, where he did postdoctoral research at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 2013, he returned to Germany to establish a new research group at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen. In 2015 and 2016, he was invited to Paris for short research stays at the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles.

The aim of his research is to fathom generally valid physical principles of the dynamics and self-organisation of soft matter. For him, soft matter means not only classical fluids such as polymers, but especially active, living systems such as communities of living microorganisms. “How do the biological functionalities and the dynamic properties of individual cells give rise to phenomena of self-organisation at the population level? What roles do interfaces play in this process? How do motile microorganisms explore their environment, and how do they ultimately adhere to surfaces? I am fascinated by the fact that such fundamental questions always give rise to interesting technological issues of highly topical social relevance, for example in the field of sustainable energy and pharmaceutical drug research”, says the scientist.

In his teaching, Prof. Dr. Oliver Bäumchen represents the entire breadth of experimental physics. “It gives me great pleasure to bring current research topics into the lecture hall and to see students get excited about them.” At the University of Bayreuth, he appreciates the collegial atmosphere and looks forward to exciting, cross-faculty collaboration, to campus life, and also the Upper Franconian countryside.