Background
Jens joined ORNL in March 2020. He graduated from Leipzig University, Germany with a doctorate in Physics in 2011, where he worked with Klaus Kroy on analytical models of biopolymer networks. Actin filaments in the cytoskeleton constitute an important example. During his graduate studies, he first came into contact with GPUs for scientific computation in 2009, and later explored their use for the simulation of block copolymer phase transitions, as a Postdoc with David Morse (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota). In particular, he demonstrated universality of coarse-grained models of block copolymer melts beyond the self-consistent mean-field theories, using molecular simulation.
He is also a developer of the general-purpose, GPU accelerated simulation toolkit HOOMD-blue. Jens designed its multi-GPU capabilities and tested them on the Titan supercomputer at OLCF not long after it had completed acceptance testing in 2013. From 2013-2020, Jens was a Postdoc and Assistant Research Scientist in Sharon Glotzer’s group (Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan), working on HOOMD development and colloidal crystallization.
His research focuses on colloidal and bio-molecular self-assembly, including depletion interactions and protein crystallization. At ORNL, Jens is developing efficient parallel simulation algorithms to investigate assembly pathways of novel synthetic nano- and biomaterials. He assists users to optimize and run their codes on facility resources.
Education
Staff Activities
Open Source Contribution:
Publications
Highlights
Predicting Protein Targets and the Molecules that Bind with Them
2021 at the OLCF: Year in Review
Shape-Based Model Sheds Light on Simplified Protein Binding
Unstoppable Science
