Hänsch Named Honorary Chair Professor of UST

Professor Theodor W. Hänsch has been named honorary chair professor at National Chiao Tung University, an internationally ranked research university. Together with National Tsing Hua National Central and National Yang Ming universities, it is part of the University System of Taiwan (UST).

Shown are Professors Chun-Yu Wu, National Chiao Tung University president, right, and Theodor Hänsch during the award ceremony on Nov. 1, 2010.

Professor Yan-Hwa Wu Lee, chancellor of UST, said Hänsch’s appointment, to the entire university system, will run from until Nov. 3, 2020.

Hänsch was born in Heidelberg in 1941. He studied physics at the University of Heidelberg, earning his doctorate in 1969. His postdoctoral study was done in the US, and he was a professor of physics at Stanford University in California from 1975 to 1986. Since 1986, he has been director at Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and professor of experimental physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

His main research fields are the high-precision laser spectroscopy of hydrogen and similar elements and the investigation of ultracold quantum gases. He has received many scientific prizes and awards including, in 2005, the Nobel Prize in physics for the development of the frequency comb technique.

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