Werner Hofmann (born November 11, 1952 in

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...

) is a German professor of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. He is director of the

Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics The Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik ("MPI for Nuclear Physics" or MPIK for short) is a research institute in Heidelberg, Germany. The institute is one of the 80 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Max Planck Society), an independent, n ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Life and work

Hofmann studied physics at the

University of Karlsruhe The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 w ...

, completing his studies with a doctorate in 1977. In 1980 he wrote his Habilitationsschrift at the

University of Dortmund TU Dortmund University (german: Technische Universität Dortmund) is a technical university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's and ...

. In 1981 he received a Heisenberg Scholarship and from 1984 to 1987 he worked as assistant and associate professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he was appointed full professor of physics in 1987. Since 1988 he is director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg. In 1989 he also received an honorary professorship at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. Since 2010, he is a member of the

Heidelberg Academy of Sciences The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (German: ''Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften''), established in 1909 in Heidelberg, Germany, is an assembly of scholars and scientists in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Academ ...

. Hofmann's research areas include astroparticle physics, specifically high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics of detectors on the ground; CP violation; physics of heavy quarks; neutrinoless double beta decay; QCD; quark and gluon fragmentation; and physics of jets. He is senior scientist in the

High Energy Stereoscopic System High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is a system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) for the investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the photon energy range of 0.03 to 100 TeV. The acronym was chosen in honour of Victor ...

(H.E.S.S.) experiment in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. According to

Geoffrey C. Fox Geoffrey Charles Fox (born 7 June 1944) is a British-born American theoretical physicist and computer scientist. As of March 2024, he is a professor in the Computer Science Biocomplexity Institute at the University of Virginia. Fox was educate ...

, Hofmann's 1981 monograph ''Jets of Hadrons'' is "thorough" and "well-written".

Awards

In 2010, he received, with the H.E.S.S. team, the

Bruno Rossi Prize The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually by the High Energy Astrophysics division of the American Astronomical Society "for a significant contribution to High Energy Astrophysics, with particular emphasis on recent, original work". Named after as ...

. In 2015, he was awarded the Marian Smoluchowski Emil Warburg Prize of the Polish Physical Society and the

German Physical Society The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. The DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 60,547, as of 2019, making it the largest physics society in the world. It holds an annual conference () and multiple ...

and in 2016 he received Stern–Gerlach Medal.

References

External links

CV Werner HofmannPARTICLE PHYSICS AND HIGH-ENERGY ASTROPHYSICSMax-Planck-Gesellschaft: Hon.-Prof. Werner Hofmann
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hofmann, Werner 1952 births Living people 20th-century German physicists 21st-century German physicists