Jürgen Gauss

Born on August 13th 1960 in Konstanz, Germany, Jürgen obtained his diploma degree in chemistry in Cologne (1984) and his PhD in 1988 under the supervision of the late Professor Dieter Cremer. In April the following year, he left Germany to pursue a one-year DFG-funded research position in the group of Professor Eric J. Heller at the University of Washington, Seattle, followed by a seminal one-year stay in Professor Rodney J. Bartlett's group at the Quantum Theory Project at University of Florida, Gainesville, where he initiated a long line of work with several key figures of his later career, in particular Professor John F. Stanton, a fellow postdoc in the Bartlett group at that time.

Jürgen next returned home to Germany for another formative stay, this time lasting a total of four years working as a research assistant with the late Professor Reinhart Ahlrichs at the Universität Karlsruhe (nowadays part of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Having completed his habilitation in theoretical chemistry in January 1994, Jürgen accepted a position as associate professor (C3) at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in 1995. Since October 2001, he has been appointed full professor (C4) of theoretical chemistry at the same university.

Jürgen has been the recipient of a long list of awards and honours over the years, most notably the Carl Duisberg Memorial Prize from the German Chemical Society (1996), the annual medal awarded by the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (1997), the academy award from the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2003), and the Leibniz Prize from the German Science Foundation (2005). Jürgen has served as a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science since being elected in 2009, and he was further inducted into the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters as an elected foreign member in 2018.

To his numerous students, postdocs, colleagues, and collaborators over the years, Jürgen is first and foremost valued as a kind and supportive mentor and a scrupulous theoretician with a careful attention to detail. His many friends will furthermore recognize him as a generous and thoughtful human being, as an avid sportsman who completed the Frankfurt Marathon in under 4 hours, and as a connoisseur of the fine arts with strong interests in literature, classical music, and - in particular - the opera, which he frequents as often as possible in the company of visitors and his beloved wife, Kirsten.