Born 1948 Limburg/Lahn. Studies of physics and mathematics Univ. Frankfurt/M. and Regensburg, docto-rate (1975), German Habilitation (1982), postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (1976-1977) and Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (1978-1979), Heisenberg Fellow (1983-1987), Professor University of Würzburg (1988-1989), Professor University of Frankfurt (1989-1996), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (since 1996), Professor University of Göttingen (since 1996), Founder and coordinator of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN) (since 2005). Prizes (extract): Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (DFG, 1994), Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS, 2008), Gentner-Kastler Prize (Société Française de Physique and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, 2009). Emeritus.