Thorsten EMIG

Directeur de Recherche CNRS
Emmy Noether Fellow (2001 – 2006)
Heisenberg Fellow (2007 – 2010)

Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques,
Université Paris-Saclay

Date of birth: 06.01.1969
Nationality: German

thorsten.emig@cnrs.fr

Education & academic career

  • since 2012 — Directeur de Recherche at CNRS, LPTMS, Univ. Paris-Saclay
  • 2014 – 2018 — Senior Research Scientist at the CNRS-MIT joint laboratory UMI MultiScale Material Science for Energy and Environment, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • 2011 — Habilitation, Université Paris-Sud
  • 2007 – 2010 — Heisenberg Fellow of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
  • 2006 – 2012 — Chargé de recherche at CNRS, LPTMS, Univ. Paris-Saclay
  • 2001 – 2006 — Head of career development group (Emmy Noether Program, DFG), Institute for Theoretical Physics, Universität zu Köln, Germany
  • 1999 – 2001 — Postdoctoral Research Fellow at MIT
  • 1999 — Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CEA Saclay
  • 1998 – 1999 — Research Fellow at Institute for Theoretical Physics, Universität zu Köln, Germany
  • 1998 — PhD in Theoretical Physics, Universität zu Köln, Germany
  • 1995 — Diploma in Physics, Universität zu Köln, Germany

Awards & distinctions

  • 2018 — Research Enhancement Fund, New York University, Geospatial modeling of urban thermodynamics: Infrastructure, Environment and Micro-climate in Cities, jointly with Profs. Celik, Engui, Ghandehari
  • 2017 — Grant EMERGENCE 2017 for high-risk projects, CNRS – Institute de physique
  • 2015 — French-German PROCOPE Program, DAAD
  • 2014 — Prime d’excellence scienti fique, CNRS
  • 2012 — Marie-Curie Fellowship for postdoctoral position (with Dr. P. Rodriguez-Lopez)
  • 2009 — Grant from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Casimir Force Neutralization and Dynamic ModulationUsing Transparent Electrodes, Temperature Di erences & Light, with Profs. U. Mohideen and R. Zandi (UC Riverside), Prof. M. Kardar (MIT)
  • 2007 — MIT-France Seed Fund for Collaborative Research (MISTI, MIT, Cambridge, USA)
  • 2006 — Heisenberg Fellowship of German Research Foundation
  • 2003 — French-German PROCOPE Program, DAAD
  • 2000 — Emmy Noether Fellowship of German Research Foundation
  • 1999 — Liebrecht award for best PhD thesis in 1998/99, Faculty for mathematics and natural science, Universität zu Köln

Organization of scientific meetings

Workshop Complex HRV analysis during exercise — Oulu University, Finland, 06/2019

This workshop brings together an interdiziplinary team of researchers with expertise in exercise physiology, physics, statistics and the development of sensor technology. The objectives range from fundamental theoretical methods to study complex physiological signals to applications of sensors during exercise and training. Organized jointly with the company Polar Electro.

Workshop Running Science meets Physics & Engineering — MIT, Cambridge, USA, 04/2018

The scope of this interdisciplinary workshop was to bring together experts from physiology, sports medicine, engineering and physics. With the rapid development of wearable technologies that can monitor a plethora of biomechanical and physiological data during exercise, an enormous amount of data becomes available. However, it appears that there is a lack of models and tools that can help turn these big data into usable and meaningful information.

Workshop Urban physics — MIT, Cambridge, USA, 03/2016

The scope of this workshop was to bring together experts from urban “observatories” that collect various data within cities, and theoreticians that can build models based on those data and deduce from them general laws and concepts that can be applied to planning and optimizations of cities. Employing a “by-analogy” strategy, we expect to apply successfully smaller scale concepts of statistical physics and corresponding results to study related effects at the much larger scales of cities. Particular aspects of urban physics are the following, to name a few: (1) so-called urban heat island that refers to an elevation in urban surface and air temperatures over rural air temperatures, (2) the study of vehicular traffic flow, the formation of traffic jams, and the related optimization of travel times and energy consumption.

Conference Disorder, Fluctuations and Universality — Universität zu Köln, Germany, 01/2008

International conference, organized jointly with Prof. Joachim Krug.

Coordination of the program The theory and practice of Fluctuation-Induced Interactions — KITP, UC Santa Barbara, USA, 08/2008

Coordination of a 3 months long program on Casimir interactions, jointly with Profs. M. Kardar, A. Parsegian, and R. Zandi. The goal of this program was to illuminate, explore, and develop the conceptual and computational links between Casimir physics in various fields in order to obtain a more coherent and comprehensive picture of fluctuation-induced interactions

Scientific responsibilities and activities

Supervision of students and postdoctoral fellows

I supervised overall 6 PhD students and 6 Postdocs, as well as many undergraduate students for their Master and internships.

Teaching

I have been teaching courses on statistical physics, theoretical physics, and theoretical solid state physics at the Universität zu Köln.

Reviewing

I am a reviewer for both submissions to scientific journals (Nature, Phys. Rev. Lett.,Phys. Rev., Europhys. Lett., J. Phys. A, Class. Quantum Grav., EPJ B, EPJ C) and grant proposals for science foundations in France (ANR), Germany (DFG), and the US (NSF and Dept. of Energy). I have been also a member of search committees.

Industrial co-operations

I established an industrial co-operation between CNRS, MIT, University Paris-Saclay and the Finish company Polar Electro. The goal of this collaboration is the development of new theoretical models for analyzing big data in sport sciences.