Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Martin O. Steinhauser is Professor of Applied Physics and Computer Science at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. His academic work connects physics, mathematics, computer science, scientific simulation, computational materials science, high-performance computing, and the conceptual foundations of modern physics.

He studied physics and mathematics at the Universities of Heidelberg, Ulm, and Munich, and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. He received his Diploma in Physics from the University of Ulm in 1998 and completed his PhD in Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz in 2001, working in the field of theoretical and computational polymer physics.

In 2018, he completed his habilitation in Physical Chemistry at the University of Basel. The habilitation belongs to the Central European academic tradition of a major postdoctoral qualification and included the venia legendi and venia docendi, formally recognizing independent scholarship and university-level teaching competence.

His academic career includes fundamental research in the Max Planck Society and many years of applied and externally funded research in Fraunhofer-related and university research environments. He has worked in computational physics, physical chemistry, soft matter physics, biophysics, mechanobiology, biomedical research contexts, materials science, shock-wave physics, hypervelocity impact, scientific computing, and numerical method development.

A central feature of his work is the transfer of mathematical and computational methods across disciplinary boundaries. His research and teaching connect theoretical physics, applied mathematics, computer science, simulation methods, physical chemistry, biology, medical research contexts, and aerospace-related applications. Numerical simulation, mathematical modeling, and physical interpretation form the common methodological core of this interdisciplinary profile.

He has led externally funded research projects as principal investigator with a total funding volume exceeding €9 million, partly acquired independently and partly in collaborative research contexts. His academic record includes more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific publications, more than 50 invited presentations at universities, research institutions, and international conferences, and more than 10 invited keynote lectures at international conferences.

His international academic experience includes research and teaching activities in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Jordan, and Japan. He taught at the University of Freiburg and held a long-standing teaching appointment at the University of Basel from 2013 to 2020, where he offered courses in computational sciences, advanced quantum mechanics, electronic structure theory, general chemistry, and related areas of advanced physics and chemistry while completing his habilitation in Physical Chemistry. His international activities further include research visits at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, teaching and research activities at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, guest teaching as Guest Professor and Lecturer for Calculus I and II at the School of Basic Sciences and Humanities of the German-Jordanian University in Amman, and a visiting professorship at the University of Tokyo in Japan.

In addition to his university and public-research career, he has professional experience outside academia. This includes private-sector work in drug discovery, linkage and association studies, cell-culture-based research, and software management at SAP, a leading European enterprise software company. He also established and directed his own laser laboratory, built from the ground up for research in applied physical and computational contexts.

He is the author of scientific textbooks and monographs published by Springer. His current academic work combines research, university teaching, scientific book projects, conceptual synthesis, and the communication of physics, mathematics, scientific computing, and the intellectual foundations of university-level education.

His teaching profile is complemented by formal higher-education teaching training at the University of Basel, including the SEDA-accredited qualification “Supporting Learning”. This training focused on university-level teaching, learning-oriented course design, professional teaching practice, and the reflective development of academic education.

My approach to university teaching combines conceptual depth, mathematical clarity and a learning-oriented structure of academic instruction. During my habilitation period at the University of Basel, I completed a multi-semester program in academic teaching and higher education didactics. The program led to a Higher Education Teaching Certificate accredited by the Staff and Educational Development Association, London. It included course work and reflective work on learning-oriented course design, student feedback, assessment, peer observation and the development of a teaching portfolio.