Physicist Caterina Cocchi appointed

Prof. Dr. Caterina Cocchi has been appointed Professor of Theoretical Solid State Physics at the Institute of Physics.

She previously held a Junior Professorship for ”Theory of excitations in low-dimensional systems” at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Cocchi studied physics at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, where she also received her PhD in 2012 with a thesis on graphene nanostructures. In 2013, she moved to the Humboldt University as post-doctoral researcher.  Cocchi’s research focuses on lightmatter interaction. She studies the electronic and optical properties of complex materials from first principles. These materials could be used in next-generation solar cells, for example. She heads projects in a Collaborative Research Centre and in a Priority Programme both funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). She is also involved in a competence cluster on battery materials funded by the Federal Ministry of Research (BMBF) and leads a project on digitalization financed by the VolkswagenStiftung.