Directorate

Reinhard Alkofer, born in 1960, has been Professor of Subatomic Physics at the University of Graz since 2005. He received his doctorate in theoretical particle physics from the Technical University of Munich with the distinction Summa Cum Laude, and his doctoral thesis was awarded the Dies Academicus Prize of the Technical University of Munich for particularly outstanding dissertations and habilitations. After his doctorate, he worked and researched at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, at the Service de Physique Theorique de Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires Saclay, at the Technical University of Munich and at the University of Tübingen.

Structured doctoral training has always been a particular concern of his. From 1992 to 1999 he was an associate member of the DFG Research Training Group "Hadrons and Nuclei" and from 2001 to 2005 Principal Investigator in the European Research Training Group Tübingen-Basel "Hadrons in Vacuum, in Nuclei and in Stars". After moving to the University of Graz, he was spokesperson of the newly established FWF doctoral program "Hadrons in Vacuum, in Nuclei and in Stars" from 2006 to 2008, and then Principal Investigator in this doctoral program until 2019. From 2020 to 2022, he was spokesperson of the Doctoral Academy Consortium in Theoretical Particle Physics.

His special commitment to the education of doctoral researchers and Master's students was recognized in 2012 with the teaching award of the University of Graz in the category research-led teaching.

His research, documented in more than 200 publications, is dedicated to current problems in elementary particle, gravitational and mathematical physics. To this end, he and the members of his research group work in several international collaborations, which particularly promote the networking of doctoral researchers and Master's students. Building on this, his early-stage researchers have been able to establish contacts with leading scientists in the research field through longer research stays at universities and research institutions, including in the USA, Brazil, Spain, France and Germany.

Reinhard Alkofer has been director of the International University Weeks for Theoretical Physics in Schladming, a winter school with a long tradition for doctoral researchers in theoretical elementary particle physics and related fields. He is a member of the Theory Advisory Group for the PANDA experiment in the planned FAIR project in Darmstadt, Germany. He is also an editor for the European Physical Journal.