Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences - Department of Physics

Death of Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Lutz Schimansky-Geier

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Lutz Schimansky-Geier, a long-time member of the Department of Physics, has passed away on November 22 of 2020 after a long period of illness.


Lutz Schimansky-Geier had been a Professor for Theoretical Physics at HU Berlin since 1994 and the head of the group Stochastic Processes until 2015. He made fundamental contributions to the modeling and the analysis of randomness-shaped phenomena in complex nonlinear systems. Over the last two decades he worked mainly on applications of stochastic processes in biology, for instance, on active motility of organisms, on the signal transmission in neurons, and on intracellular calcium dynamics. His intense research work is documented by more than 250 articles, two monographies, and a textbook. As a university teacher and mentor, he has accompanied, shaped and inspired many students on their academic path. Lutz Schimansky-Geier fostered intense international and national collaborations with many colleagues. As the speaker of the collaborative research center (Sonderforschungsbereich) "Nonlinear Complex Processes" from 1999 to 2010, as a principal investigator at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin and in various other research collaborations, he shaped the Berlin scientific landscape as well. He also served the scientific community as the editor of scientific journals and as the organizer of many conferences and workshops.