Detlef Lohse studied physics at the Universities of Kiel & Bonn (Germany), and got his PhD at Univ. of Marburg (1992). He then joined Univ. of Chicago as postdoc. After his qualification (Marburg, 1997), in 1998 he became Chair at Univ. of Twente in the Netherlands and built up the Physics of Fluids group, which is now one of the leading groups in the field on a world scale. Since 2015 he is also Member of the Max Planck Society and of the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany. He in addition is founding director of the Max Planck Center Twente for Complex Fluid Dynamics (founded 2016).
Lohse’s research interests cover phyiscs of fluids, fluid dynamics, and soft matter physics in a broad sense, with focus on turbulence, turbulent heat & mass transport, and multiphase flow, micro- and nanofluidics (bubbles, drops, inkjet printing, wetting), and granular & biomedical flow. He combines experimental, theoretical, and numerical methods and does both fundamental and more applied science and science with an application perspective. He has published more than 720 papers in peer-reviewed journals and up to now 118 PhD students graduated under Lohse’s (co-)supervison. Presently, 75 of Lohse’s former PhD students and postdocs hold professorships (or equivalent tenured research positions) all over the world.
Lohse has received various scientific prizes and awards, most notably the Max Planck Medal for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics (2019), the Balzan Prize (2018) for exceptional contributions in fluid dynamics, the Fluid Dynamics Prize (2017) of the American Physical Society (2017), and the George K. Batchelor Prize (IUTAM, 2012). Other major prizes include the Spinoza Prize (NWO, 2005), the Simon Stevin Meester Prize (STW, 2009), the Physica Prize of the Dutch Physics Society (2011), and the AkzoNobel Science Award (2012). He is also Member of the (American) National Academy of Engineering (2017), of the Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW, 2005), the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina, 2002) and Fellow of APS (2002). Lohse has also received three European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants (2010 & 2017 & 2023). In 2010, he got knighted to become “Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw”.
Lohse has been Associate Editor of J. Fluid Mechanics since 2007 and is or has been Associate Editor or Member of the Editorial Board of various journals, including Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. (for 7 years), Science Advances, and Phys. Rev. E. He has served the community also as elected Chair of the Executive Board of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society (2020-2023), as Chair and Member of various other APS committees, as elected Member of the Executive Board of IUTAM (2020-2024), as Chairman of the IUTAM Fluid Mechanics Symposium Panel (2016-2024), as elected Member of Euromech Council (2004-2010), as Chairman of the Euromech-Board for the European Turbulence Conference (2009-2017), among various others. He also is Member of the Excellence Commission and of the Committee of Experts for the Excellence Strategy of the German Science Foundation (DFG) (2016-2024).
