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Obituary: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Sandner

Date Announced: 08 Dec 2015

It has been announced that Professor Sandner suddenly and unexpectedly died on December 5th, 2015, nearby Berlin, Germany.

The Berthold Leibinger Stiftung (Foundation), where Prof. Sandner was a Trustee, stated, “We are deeply affected and sad. We lost an active and amiable Trustee who has given us much advice and feedback on our work.”


Photo: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Sandner, Trustee of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung

The work of Professor Dr. Wolfgang Sandner

Born in 1949, in Teisendorf, Germany, Wolfgang Sandner studied physics and received his PhD at Freiburg University in 1979, where he also received habilitation six years later. From 1986 he taught as full professor at Würzburg and Freiburg university as well as in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA from where in 1993 he was called to a position in Germany.

He was also Director at the Max Born Institute (MBI) in Berlin Adlershof - an institute of the Leibniz Association - as well as professor at the Technical University Berlin. Since 2009 he also served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Representatives of Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.

His most recent work included basic research into light-matter interaction at ultra-high intensities, encompassing the development and application of short-pulse lasers of highest peak and average power for laser particle acceleration, research on and with laser-based UV- and X-ray sources, as well as special lasers for special applications (Free Electron Lasers). He authored more than 200 publications in peer reviewed international journals.

After he became director of the MBI Professor Sandner was called into many national and international organizations of science and of research policy particularly in the EU, as an advisor to the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and as a member of scientific advisory boards of many research institutes. Since 2003 he has been coordinator of the European Union Research Infrastructure Network LASERLAB EUROPE consisting of 30 of the most important laser research institutes from 19 European countries.

Wolfgang Sandner was also a "Fellow of the American Physical Society" (1994) and was President of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft DPG (German Physical Society) from 2010 to 2012.

He was married with a son and a daughter.

Contact


Recent optics.org coverage of Prof Sandner's work
Grand opening for ELI Beamlines laser center in Prague
ELI project takes shape with femtolasers deal
Powering lasers by 'waste' heat
Claes-Göran Wahlström elected Laserlab-Europe coordinator
28-strong Laserlab Europe targets higher powers

Interview in Der Tagesspiegel, 13.04.2010 (in German)
"Wir sind im Jahrhundert des Lichts" ("We are in the Century of Light")
 
 

E-mail: info@leibinger-stiftung.de

Web Site: www.leibinger-stiftung.de/en/foundation/mission-statement.html

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