- November 24, 1941, Lorenz Kramer was born in Naples, Italy (father German, mother Italian, both biologists).
- 1943 his family moved to Heidelberg, then in 1948 to Wilhelmshaven where he went through school.
- 1961-62 military service at Berchtesgaden.
- He has three grown-up children: Sebastian, an engineer in the networking industry, Julia, a piano instructor, and Maria, who is an architect (in London).
- April 5, 2005, Lorenz Kramer died unexpectedly in Bayreuth.
Training and Professional Positions:
- 1962-64 University of Heidelberg (Vordiplom)
- 1964-67 University of Hamburg (Diplom)
- Thesis with Prof. L. Tewordt on the thermodynamic behaviour of type II superconductors near the lower critical field.
- 1967-69 Stanford University 1967-69 (Ph.D.)
- Thesis with Prof. A.L. Fetter on the stability of superflow and ion mobility in 3He-4He mixtures.
- 1969-71 Research Associate at Rutgers University
- 1971-74 Staff Researcher at the Kernforschungsanlage Jülich
- 1975-78 Associate Professor at the Technical University Munich
- since 1978 Full Professor at the University of Bayreuth
- 1981: declined an offer for a full professorship at the Technical University Munich
Longer visits abroad:
- IBM Zurich, Swisse (repeatedly)
- University of Lancaster, UK
- Institute for Theoretical Physics at Santa Barbara, USA (repeatedly)
- Laboratoire de Physique des Solides at Orsay, France (repeatedly)
- Aspen Instutute of Physics, USA
- Weizmann Insitute for Sciences, Israel
- Institute Non-Lineare de Nice at Nice/Sofia-Antipolis, France (often)
- CNLS at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
- Institute Henry Poincare at Paris, France
- Universitat de Barcelona (repeatedly), Spain
- Istituto Nationale di Ottica at Florence, Italy
- In addition many shorter visits.
Awards:
- Fellowship of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes 1962-68
- Various guest professorships and travel awards (Fulbright etc.)
- Humboldt-Mutis Award 1994 for the Collboration with Spain
Main Administrative Responsibilities etc.:
- 1979-81 Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
- 1991-94 Chairman of the Physics Institute
- 1982-94 Chairman of Senate committee on computer matters
- 1991-96 Member of the Editorial Board of Physical Review A (later E)
- since 1992, Editor of Physica D
- 1996-2001 Coordinator of the European research network "Pattern Formation, Noise and Spatio-Temporal Chaos in Complex Systems", funded by the European Union
Main Fields of Research:
- since 1967 Superconductivity and Superfluidity
- 1974-78 Biophysics
- since 1982 Nonlinear Phenomena in Continuous Systems
- (specialties: Pattern Formation in Liquid Crystals; the Complex Ginzburg-Landau equation and other nonlinear equations of mathematical physics)
Hobbies:
- Music (classic and spanish guitar), travel, sports: all muscle-driven vehicles like uni- and bicycling, inline scating, skiing (in particular cross country), hopefully more to come, mountaineering
