Study of Physics and Mathematics; Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics; Habilitation for Theoretical Physics; founded (PIK) in 1992, has been its Director ever since;Chair in Theoretical Physics at Potsdam University and External Professor at Santa Fe Institute (USA); 2001-2005 Research Director of the Tyndall Centre in the UK and Visiting Professor at Oxford University thereafter. Co-Chair of WBGU; Governing Board Chair of the Climate-KIC of the EIT and Chair of the Standing Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina);elected member of the Leopoldina, the Academia Europaea, the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the Max Planck Society and several other academies; received Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2002), the German Environment Prize (2007) and the Volvo Environment Prize (2011); holds honorary doctorates from the University of Copenhagen (2011) and Technische Universität Berlin (2012). Authored, co-authored or edited more than 250 articles and more than 50 books in the fields of condensed matter physics, complex systems dynamics, climate change research, Earth System analysis, and sustainability science.