Field of Work
In his research, Prof. Holm addresses complex physical problems using computer simulations. These simulations often have to run on supercomputers due to the amount of computing time needed. In the process, analytical statistical models are used for theoretical predictions. Professor Holm’s special interest is the study of soft matters, a new, interdisciplinary field of the classic disciplines physics, chemistry, and biology. In everyday life, soft matter can be found in plastic, superabsorbers, paints, soaps, or hydrogels; but also biological systems like DNA, RNA, or chromatin fibers consist of soft matter. Soft matter research attempts to solve problems both in biology and in material science. Current fields of study are the structure and dynamics of charged polymers and biological macromolecules, charged colloids and proteins, as well as magnetic and ionic liquids.
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Personal Information
For Professor Holm, “ESPResSo” is not just a strong coffee, but also the software package “Extensible Simulation Package for Research on Soft Matter Systems” that has been developed under his supervision and is now used in research worldwide. He was born in 1960 in Helmstedt and studied physics at the TU Berlin. He completed his doctorate in 1987 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta (USA) and habilitated in theoretical physics at the FU Berlin in 1996. From 1996 until 2008, Professor Holm was a project leader of the research group “Theory of Polymers” with K. Kremer at the Max Planck Institute of Polymer Research in Mainz, and was a fellow at the “Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies” from 2005-2008. Since 2009, Professor Holm has been the Director of the Institute for Computational Physics at the University of Stuttgart. Besides a large number of grants, Professor Holm, A. Arnold, H. J. Limbach, and B. A. F. Mann were awarded the third price of the Heinz-Billing-Association for their development of the ESPResSo software package.
Prof. Holm is spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 716 (Dynamic Simulations of Systems with Large Particle Numbers) sponsored by the German Research Association (DFG) and fellow of the Stuttgart Centre for Simulation Sciences SC SimTech.