Rate My Professor Søren Ulstrup

Søren Ulstrup is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University, with an additional affiliation at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from Aarhus University in 2014, an M.Sc. in Engineering (Physics and Nanotechnology) from the Technical University of Denmark in 2011, and a B.Sc. in Engineering (Nanotechnology) from Aalborg University in 2009. His professional career began with a postdoctoral position at Aarhus University from 2014 to 2015, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, USA, from 2015 to 2017. In 2017, he returned to Aarhus University as an Assistant Professor, promoted to Associate Professor in experimental physics effective April 1, 2022.

Ulstrup's research focuses on the electronic properties of two-dimensional crystals, devices, and quantum materials, probed on nanometer length scales and femtosecond time scales using synchrotron radiation and ultrafast laser sources. His expertise encompasses condensed matter physics, experimental physics, 2D materials, quantum materials, photoemission spectroscopy, twistronics, van der Waals heterostructures, graphene, and transition metal dichalcogenides. He has secured major funding, including the ERC Consolidator Grant (2024–2029), Novo Nordisk Foundation Project Grant (2023–2026), Sapere Aude Starting Grant (2020–2024), Gerhard Ertl Young Investigator Award (2019), membership in The Young Academy of Science (2019–2024), Villum Young Investigator Grant (2017–2022), and Ph.D. awards from the Danish Natural Sciences Academy and Aarhus University Research Foundation (both 2015). Notable publications include 'Direct View of Hot Carrier Dynamics in Graphene' (Physical Review Letters, 2013; 476 citations), 'Oxygen Switching of the Epitaxial Graphene–Metal Interaction' (ACS Nano, 2012; 263 citations), 'Emergence of a Metal–Insulator Transition and High-Temperature Charge-Density Waves in VSe2 at the Monolayer Limit' (Nano Letters, 2018; 258 citations), 'Electronic Structure of Epitaxial Single-Layer' (Physical Review Letters, 2015; 206 citations), and recent works like 'Electric Field-Induced Hole- and Electron-Type Flat Bands in Twisted Double Bilayer Graphene' (Advanced Electronic Materials, 2026). With over 4,500 citations, Ulstrup has delivered public lectures such as Science Slam 2022 and serves on academic committees, advancing nanoscale photoemission techniques.