Dr. Andreas Elsäßer

The interdisciplinary expertise of Andreas Elsaesser spans from biophysics to astrobiology, astrochemistry and space sciences. He studied Physics at TU Munich and completed his PhD in NanoBiophysics in the United Kingdom at the University of Ulster. As a postdoc, Andreas worked at the University of Leiden, was a guest scientist at NASA Ames and the ESA Technology Center in Holland. Currently, he is a Freigeist Fellow of the Volkswagen Foundation and research group leader at Freie Universität Berlin. Previous fellowships include a POINT Fellowship from Freie Universität Berlin and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship from the European Comission. Andreas leads the ‘Experimental Biophysics and Space Sciences’ group at the Physics Department of Freie Universität Berlin. There, he and his team focus on research topics spanning from astrophysics to astrochemistry and exobiology. Additionally, he is PI of the ESA space exposure experiments OREOcube and Exocube on the International Space Station, mission scientists of the ESA SpectroCube mission and Co-I of several other space experiments. Andreas Elsaesser chaired the ESA Astrobiology/Astrochemistry Topical Team and is actively involved in advising ESA and other space agencies on future strategies and research directions in the fields of astrobiology and astrochemistry. A primary emphasis of his work and research is on methods for detecting life on other planets within our solar system and beyond.