Honorary Chair Professor

Theodor W. Hänsch has been named honorary chair professor at National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu City, Taiwan, part of the University System of Taiwan. His appointment, to the entire university system, will run until Nov. 3, 2020. He earned his doctorate in physics at the University of Heidelberg 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 of Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and professor of experimental physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. His main research fields are 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.