Welcome to Dr. Timo Thonhauser, new Assistant Professor

The Physics Department welcomes Dr. Timo Thonhauser as a new Assistant Professor in theoretical and computational condensed matter physics. He received his PhD in solid state physics from the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Karl–Franzens–Universität Graz, Austria in 2001. Dr. Thonhauser subsequently held a Postdoctoral Research position in the Department of Physics at The Pennsylvania State University from 2002-2004. From 2004-2007 he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. From 2006-2007 he also held a Visiting Scientist Appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he in 2007 became a Research Associate before joining the faculty at WFU.

Prof. Thonhauser's research is devoted to the application of condensed-matter theory to currently outstanding problems in physics, biophysics, chemistry, and materials science. His motivation is the desire to advance the exploration of materials in these fields by developing and applying new electronic-structure approaches, methods, and computational tools. Currently, he is working on an approach to calculate ab-initio NMR chemical shifts, and the description of van der Waals forces within density functional theory. Both research fields have direct applications to nano-, bio-, and energy-related materials.