Knoll, Wolfgang

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Knoll joined the Max Planck Society in 1993 as one of the directors at the MPI for Polymer Re- search. After a physics education at the Technical Univer- sity of Karlsruhe, he received a PhD degree in biophysics at the University of Konstanz in 1976. In 1977 he joined the group of Prof. E. Sackmann at the University of Ulm working on model membrane systems and their phase behavior by neutron scattering, spectroscopic and ther- modynamic measurements. After a post-doctoral stay at the IBM Research Laboratory in San Jose, California, (1980/ 1981) and a stay as a visiting scientist at the Insti- tute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble he followed Prof. Sackmann to the Physics Dept. of the TU of Munich. There, he con- tinued research on various aspects of the structure, order, and dynamics of lipid membranes. He also started work on evanescent wave optics for the characterization of in- terfaces and ultrathin coatings. Following another visiting scientist appointment at the IBM Research Laboratory in San Jose, he received the Habilitation from the TU Munich in 1986. After a short period as a Heisenberg fellow he was offered the same year a position at the Associate Professor level at the MPI for Polymer Research in the group of Prof. Spiess, with a joint appointment as Privatdozent at the University of Mainz in 1987. In 1990 he received the Heinrich Welker Award and was teaching at the University of Erlangen-N?rnberg. From 1991 to 1999 he was Head of Laboratory for Exotic Nanomaterials hosted by the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Wako, Japan. In 1992, he was appointed Con- sulting Professor at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, California, where he participates in the NSF-funded Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromo- lecular Assemblies (CPIMA) with a small group working on bio-interfaces. In 1998 he was appointed Professor of Chemistry (by Courtesy) at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and in 1999 Adjunct Professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea. Since 1999 he is also a Temasek Professor at the National University of Singapore, direct- ing a research group on Functional Materials and Bio-In- terfaces. He is the 2003 recipient of the Eugen-and-Inge- Seibold-Award.

His current research interests include aspects of the struc- ture/order - property/ function relationships of polymeric/ organic systems, in particular, in thin films and at functionalized surfaces. Strong emphasis is put on opti- cal techniques to elucidate the structural and functional properties of supramolecular assemblies and nano-materi- als.