Bernd Rieger appointed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor

Bernd Rieger has been appointed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor. His field of research is computational microscopy. The Antoni van Leeuwenhoek appointments are intended for the promotion of young outstanding researchers to professorships in order for them to optimally pursue the ongoing development of their academic careers.

Bernd Rieger’s research interests focus on the field of computational microscopy: the application of imaging physics and image processing to light and electron microscopy, in particular for life sciences at the biomolecular level. Rieger focusses on the interpretation of images based on the analysis of quantitative information; he is a globally respected expert in this field.

In 2015, he received an ERC Consolidator grant in the amount of 1.9 million euros. He is investigating whether the resolution of optical nanoscopy can be improved towards1 nm. This would enable the imaging of biomolecules at the scale of the molecules itself with the help of a light microscope and fluorescent labels attached to the biomolecules. 

Bernd Rieger studied physics at the Technische Universität München in Germany, where he graduated in 1999. In 2004, he obtained his doctorate for his thesis on “Structure from Motion in nD Image Analysis”. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany. From 2005 to 2010 he worked for FEI Electron Optics, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; from 2006 part-time when he joined the Quantitative Imaging Group at TU Delft.