Honorary doctorate for Prof. Dr. Hermann Nicolai from Chalmers University of Technology
The Faculty Senate of Chalmers University of Technology will bestow the degree Doctor of Technology on Prof Dr Hermann Nicolai, director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI). The ceremony for conferring the doctor's degree will take place on Saturday, May 14th 2016 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Hermann Nicolai receives the honor for his engagement over a long period of time developing a close collaboration with Chalmers's scientists in the field of quantum gravity. “Receiving an Honorary Doctor from Chalmers is a very special distinction for me”, said Nicolai. A number of graduate students and more senior scientists from Chalmers have stayed longer or shorter periods at the Albert Einstein Institute and several have later been post-doctoral fellows there.
Nicolai has for many years been a world-leading scientist in quantum gravity, i.e. the research that tries to unify quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of gravitation (General Relativity) two of the most important discoveries in physics during the 20th century and a key to understand the fundamental laws of the universe.
Hermann Nicolai, born 1952, studied and received his doctorate 1978 at University of Karlsruhe and his habilitation 1983 in Heidelberg. Until 1986 he has been fellow and staff member of CERN in Geneva. He has become Professor in Theoretical Physics at University of Karlsruhe in 1986 and University of Hamburg in 1988. Since 1997 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics leading the division Quantum Gravity and Unified Theories. He is also an honorary professor at the Humboldt University Berlin and at the Leibniz University in Hannover. He has been awarded numerously for his scientific contributions, i.e. the Otto Klung Prize in physics 1991, the Einstein Medal by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern, Switzerland 2010 and the Guy-Lussac-Humboldt-Prize in 2013.
