Gauss Professorship

The Gauss Professorship offers outstanding scientists from abroad the opportunity to temporarily, and in a sense symbolically, occupy the chair of Carl Friedrich Gauss as a guest of the Academy. The professorship was established on the centenary of the death of the eminent mathematician, who served as Director of the Göttingen University Observatory from 1807 until his death in 1855.

This special appointment is a research stay without formal obligations. However, the guest is entitled to give lectures or talks at the university and to participate in meetings of the Academy.

The recipient is selected by the Gauss Commission, which is appointed by the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Class. Priority is given to scholars who have made significant contributions to the fields represented by Gauss: astronomy, geophysics, mathematics, and physics.

 

Gauss Professorships

2025 (invited)

Prof Simon Albrecht, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Denmark

Prof Dennis Baldocchi, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Prof Bertrand Lefebvre, Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes, Environnement , Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France

Prof Bernhard Mehlig, Department of Physics, Gothenburg University, Sweden

Prof Eva Miranda, Laboratory of Geometry and Dynamical Systems, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (EPSEB), Barcelona, Spanien


2024

Prof Eric Gaidos, Department of Earth Sciences, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Prof Jana Roithova, Spectroscopy and Catalysis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands

Prof Srikanth Sastry, Theoretical Sciences Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India

Prof Xingliang Zhang, Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi’an, P.R. China
 

2023

Prof Dmitriy Grazhdankin, Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics of Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

Prof Ryszard Nest, Mathematics Department, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Prof Alain Pumir, Laboratoire de Physique, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France

Prof Guoliang Yu, Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University, USA

Assoc-Prof Alessio Zaccone, Department of Physics, Milan, Italy
 

2021/2022

Prof Pierre Braunstein, Institut de Chimie, Université de Strasbourg, France

Prof Rainer Dietmann, Department of Mathematics, University of London, UK

Prof Grzegorz Szamel, Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA

Prof Sotiris S. Xantheas, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, West Richland, USA


2020

* Some recipients began their stay only in 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. *

Prof Mark H. Thiemens, Division of Physical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, USA

Prof Rolando Victor Rivera Pomar, Centro de Bioinvestigaciones, Buenos Aires, Argentina


2019

Prof Trevor D. Wooley, School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, UK

Prof Dr Leticia González, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Austria

Prof Mark Adriaan van Zuilen, Equipe Géomicrobiologie, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), France

Prof Eckhard Meinrenken, Mathematics Department, University of Toronto, Canada  


2018

Prof Ozan Öktem, Sweden

Prof Simon Turner, Director of Research, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Australia

Prof Ranko Richert, School of Molecular Sciences, Arizona State University Tempe, USA

Prof Trichur Vidyasagar, Department of Optometry & Vision Sciences, and Adjunct Professor Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience, University of Melbourne, Australia


2017

Prof Charles T. Campbell, Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, USA

Prof Simon Turner, Director of Research, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Australia

Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé, School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Prof Paul Frank Baum, Department of Mathematics, The Pennsylvania State University, USA

Prof Mark H. Thiemens, Division of Physical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, USA


2016

Prof Charles T. Campbell, Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

Prof Kannan Soundararajan, Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, USA

Prof John Coates, Centre for Mathematical Sciences (DPMMS), Cambridge, UK

Prof Richard Holme, School of Environmental Sciences, Jane Herdman Laboratories, Liverpool, UK


2015

Prof Xueming Yang, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China

Prof Michael Francis A’Hearn, Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, USA

Prof David Kelly Campbell, Department of Physics, Boston University, USA

Prof Trevor Wooley, School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, UK


2014

Prof Kirk A. Peterson, Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry, Washington State University, USA

Prof Michael Francis A'Hearn, Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, USA 

Prof Mikhail Gordin, St. Petersburg Department of V.A. Steklov Mathematical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Prof David Kelly Campbell, Department of Physics, Boston University, USA


2013

Prof Andrey Vilesov, Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

Prof Yuriy G. Shermolovich, Institute of Organic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine


2012

Prof Yuriy G. Shermolovich, Institute of Organic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine

Prof Evgenii E. Nikitin, Department of Chemistry, Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa, Israel

Prof Mark Dijkstra, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching, Germany


2011

Prof Itamar Procaccia, Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Prof Daniel Auerbach, San Jose, California, USA

Prof Evgenii E. Nikitin, Department of Chemistry, Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa, Israel


2010

Prof David C. Morse, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science,, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

Prof Alexander V. Sobolev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry V. I. Vernadsky, Moscow, Russian Federation


2009

Prof Luciano Floridi, St. Cross College, University of Oxford, UK

Prof David C. Morse, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
 

2008

Prof Hideyuki Saio, Astronomical Institute, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University Aramaki, Japan

Prof Santiago Alvarez, Departement de Quimica Inorganica, University of Barcelona, Spain

Prof Alexander V. Sobolev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry V. I. Vernadsky, Moscow, Russian Federation