“How does lightning work? And how can we understand and optimize similar processes in plasma and high voltage technology?”

Ute Ebert is Full Professor in the Elementary Processes in Gas Discharges group at Eindhoven University of Technology, in part time. Her main affiliation is with the NWO research institute Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in Amsterdam (www.cwi.nl), where she leads the Multiscale Dynamics group (https://www.cwi.nl/research/groups/multiscale-dynamics).

While her group in Amsterdam develops analytical and computational models and model reduction techniques for pulsed gas discharges, the collaboration with experimental and applied research on the same topic in Eindhoven has led to many joint projects and publications since her appointment in Eindhoven in 2002. Current joint projects are financed by the EU and by NWO and concern lightning physics, high voltage technology in the context of electricity nets, and applications of pulsed plasmas in agriculture and combustion engines.

Ute Ebert studied Physics at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel) before starting her PhD studies at the University of Essen (Germany). She successfully defended her thesis in 1994, and then she moved to the Instituut-Lorentz of Leiden University as a postdoc. In 1998, she became researcher at CWI (the Center for Mathematics and Informatics) in Amsterdam. In 2002, she became a part-time Full Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and leader of the Multiscale Dynamics research group at CWI.

Partners in (semi-)industry:

• ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland
• Bekaert Combustion Technology B.V.
• VitalFluid B.V.