Rate My Professor Kirstine Berg-Sørensen

Kirstine Berg-Sørensen is associate professor in biological physics and group leader of the Optics Lab for Quantum Sensing within the Magnetic Resonance section at the Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark. She earned her Ph.D. from Aarhus University. Her earliest research experience centered on quantum mechanical and semi-classical models of laser-cooled atoms and their physics. In 1999, she pivoted to biological physics, securing a 6 million DKK grant from the Danish Research Agencies to establish Denmark's inaugural optical tweezers laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. She has since advanced analysis and modeling of data from single-molecule experiments in both in vitro and in vivo systems, focusing on optical tweezers, optical traps in microfluidic environments, and micro-particle velocimetry measurements related to osmotic flows in plants and flows near structured surfaces.

Currently, Kirstine Berg-Sørensen leads efforts to integrate biophysics and optical trapping in biological systems with quantum sensing using color centers in diamonds, advancing biosensors and NV magnetometry. She served as Head of Studies for the MSc program in Physics and Nanotechnology at DTU from 2013 to 2017. In January 2025, she was appointed chair of the Independent Research Fund Denmark's (DFF) scientific research council for Natural Sciences (FNU). Her accolades include a 2021 NERD grant for quantum technology in physical processes and a 2024 Carlsberg Foundation Research Infrastructure grant for combined Raman imaging and quantum sensing inside living cells. Prominent publications encompass 'Sap flow and sugar transport in plants' (Jensen et al., 2016), 'tweezercalib 2.0: Faster version of MatLab package for precise calibration of optical tweezers' (Hansen et al., 2006), 'Power spectrum analysis for optical tweezers' (Berg-Sørensen and Flyvbjerg, 2004), and 'Detection of biological signals from a live mammalian muscle using a diamond quantum magnetometer' (Webb et al., 2021), amassing over 6,000 citations on Google Scholar. Her contributions have pioneered optical manipulation techniques in Denmark and influenced biophysics and quantum-biological interfaces.