Prof. Dr. Stefan Schönert

Academic Career and Research Areas

Professor Schönert conducts research in the field of astroparticle physics. The focus of his work is the investigation of the properties of the elementary neutrino particle and its role as a messenger in astrophysical processes, and on the exploration of the nature of dark matter.

Professor Schönert studied at the University of Hannover and at TUM, where he also completed his doctorate. Following research fellowships at the University of Milan and at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy, and a guest professorship at the University of Tokyo, he was appointed to lead an independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg. In 2010 Professor Schönert was appointed as Chair of Experimental Astroparticle Physics at TUM. He was the founding and long-term spokesperson of the international GERDA collaboration from 2004 until 2014 and is the European spokesperson of the international LEGEND collaboration since 2017. He is vice-spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center 1258 “Neutrinos and Dark Matter”, a Principal Investigator in the Universe and the new ORIGINS Clusters of Excellence, and currently vice-dean of the TUM physics department.

Awards

• ERC Advanced Grant (2018)
• Max Planck Fellow (2016)