Biography

Karin Jacobs received her undergraduate degree at Konstanz University (Germany) in the area of physics.   She went on to do her PhD jointly between the University of Konstanz in Germany and the Weizmann institute of Science in Israel University, under the directions of Prof. Dr. G. Schatz and Prof. Dr. J. Klein, in the area of experimental physics, receiving her PhD in 1997.  She received the Byk-Prize of the Herbert Quandt Foundation for her PhD thesis work.  Directly after this, she did a 2 year post-doctoral study at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Berlin-Adlershof in Golm, Germany, together with Prof. Dr. H. Möhwald and Prof. Dr. S. Herminghaus.  She received the Schloessmann Prize post-doctoral fellowship to carry out these studies.  In 1999, she spent two years as an Assistant professor at Ulm University in applied physics, followed by a 1 year project leader experience at the central research department of Bayer AG in Leverkusen.  In 2002 she became a full professor in experimental physics at Saarland University, where she has remained.  She has over 100 publications to date.  She is a member of several grant committees of federal  excellence initiatives (Hamburg), and a board member for several small and medium-sized businesses (KMUs). 

The main field of research of Professor Jacobs revolves around the stability and dynamics of thin films of simple and complex fluids, probed via atomic force microscopy, imaging ellipsometry, surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, and optical microscopy. The aim of this research is to understand fluid flow at the solid/liquid interface on a nano- and micro scale, which depends on the surface characteristics of the substrate, the rheological properties of the liquid, and the interaction parameters between the liquid, substrate and environment. Research also includes analysis of data from imaging techniques, which enables the quantitative comparisons.