Klaus Schilling

Klaus Schilling studied physics from 1956 to 1959 at the University of Tübingen and specialized in theoretical nuclear physics at the University of Bonn. His 1963 master’s thesis, Radial Anomalies of Nuclei Near Magic Nuclear Numbers, received an excellent grade. Since 1960, he has been a member of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. From 1963 to 1966, he studied theoretical elementary particle physics at the University of Hamburg, focusing his PhD work (supervised by G. Kramer) on the phenomenological analysis of e–p collisions. After defending his thesis Peripheral Photoproduction Processes at High Energies with the grade summa cum laude in 1966, he continued there as a postdoctoral researcher until 1968, when he was awarded a fellowship by the Max-Kade Foundation for a research stay in 1968/69 at Caltech and SLAC. From 1969 to 1971, he worked as a research associate in the CERN Theory Division. In 1971, he was appointed associate professor of theoretical physics at Bielefeld University (BU). From 1974 to 2002, he served as full professor of theoretical physics at the Gesamthochschule Wuppertal (BUW), where his research focused on the verification of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions, through computer simulations using lattice gauge theory (LGT). In 1986, he co-initiated a joint BUW–BU DFG Research Group that significantly advanced LGT research on supercomputers, both locally and nationally: (a) through the installation of CM-2 and CM-5 systems at BUW (funded by the DFG) and (b) through the establishment of a new LGT research group at the KFA in Jülich (funded by DESY). He directed this group from 1994 to 2000.