Rate My Professor Bernd Blasius

Prof. Dr. Bernd Blasius is Full Professor (W3) for Mathematical Modelling at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg. He heads the Mathematical Modelling research group and serves as Deputy Director of ICBM. Blasius studied Physics at TU Darmstadt from 1986 to 1993 and received his Dr. rer. nat. there in 1997. He conducted postdoctoral research at Tel Aviv University from 1997 to 2001, led a junior research group funded by the Volkswagen Foundation at the University of Potsdam from 2001 to 2007, and was Junior Professor for Theoretical Ecology at Potsdam from 2004 to 2007. Since joining Oldenburg in 2007, he directed ICBM from 2015 to 2017 and has held deputy director positions multiple times. He is a founding member of the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB).

Blasius's research integrates theoretical ecology and applied mathematics, utilizing nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics, complex networks, and data science to analyze complex living systems. His interests include population dynamics in spatial environments, ecological community stability and biodiversity, bioinvasions and epidemics on networks, evolutionary processes, animal navigation, microbiology, and marine biogeochemistry. Seminal contributions feature the discovery of quasiregular ring waves and phase synchronization (Nature, 1999), adaptive network dynamics (J. R. Soc. Interface, 2007), and the intermediate distance hypothesis (Ecol. Lett., 2017). Prominent publications address population cycles (Nature 1999; PNAS 2010; Nature Ecol. Evol. 2017; Nature 2020), biological invasions via shipping (PNAS 2016; PNAS 2018), and the global shipping network (J. R. Soc. Interface, 2010). He has been on the editorial board of Ecology Letters since 2005, edited the Springer series Earth Systems Data & Models since 2011, and serves as a recommender for PCI Ecology since 2018. His work has received over 17,000 citations.