Current Team
PD Dr. Lars Umlauf
Lars is a physical oceanographer with a focus on turbulence, mixing, and small- to meso-scale processes in the ocean, and occasionally also in lakes. Presently, his main working areas include the investigation of small-scale processes in the vicinity of surface-layer fronts, atmosphere-ocean feedbacks induced by diurnal warm layers and rain layers, the dynamics of rotating bottom gravity currents, internal-wave mixing, and boundary mixing processes in stratified basins. He also collaborates with colleagues from other disciplines to understand how small-scale physical processes affect biogeoochemical interactions. Lars is one of the key developers of the ocean turbulence modeling toolbox GOTM. Since 2021, he serves as an editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research (Oceans).
Dr. Peter Holtermann
Peter's expertise are mixing and transport processes in stratified marine systems. He does this by measuring in the field using equipment as microstructure profiler, high resolution current profilers and standard oceanographic equipment. One of his major interests is the combination of our knowledge of physical transport processes with biogeochemically relevant tracers, for example oxygen. This is due to the fact, that anoxia is mainly caused by the the lack of a marine system to transport enough atmospheric oxygen to the water depths where oxygen is required. A second interest is to combine commercially available systems with in house developments of software and hardware. Have a look at the tools page for my projects aimed to improve oceanographic measurement and data processing. Since field measurements are virtually always undersampling the marine system, the measured field data is backed up with numerical modelling, mainly using the GOTM/GETM models. He is currently mainly working on the S2B, an interdisciplinary project aiming to improve our knowledge of the shallow water zone. He is the speaker of work package 2, that aims to automatize field measurements using autonomous vehicles and measurement devices.
Grete Boskamp (PhD student)
Grete completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees under the supervision of Lars. She focuses on submesoscale processes in different parts of the world’s oceans — currently in the Agulhas region and the Skagerrak. Her fascination with the ocean arises from extensive sailing, during which she experienced the dynamic nature of the sea firsthand. As part of the SkaMix project and TRR 181, Grete works with research cruise data, primarily turbulence measurements, to gain a deeper understanding of small-scale interactions.
Oliver Thiele (PhD student)
Olli is working for the S2B (shore to basin), where he is trying to understand the oxygen dynamics close to the coast near Nienhagen. To achieve this he is collecting and using measurement data from (among others) microstructure probes, acoustic doppler current profilers and an eddy-covariance setup. In the future 2D and 3D models (GETM) might be used to deepen the understanding of the hydrodynamic and biogeochemical processes driving the oxygen dynamics in this shallow area.
Prajwal Prakashrao Jadhav (PhD student)
Prajwal is working on the project TRR 181: Energy Transfers in the Atmosphere and Ocean, within subproject L4, which focuses on Multiscale Ocean–Atmosphere Coupling. His research investigates the impact of upper-ocean turbulence in the tropical ocean. Currently, he is using idealized process studies to understand how Deep Cycle Turbulence (DCT) in the equatorial ocean can be reliably represented in numerical ocean models using GOTM. In the future, based on high-resolution coupled ocean–atmosphere simulations with ICON, he will examine how DCT is influenced by the diurnal cycle of atmospheric fluxes and interactions with Tropical Instability Waves (TIWs), as well as how these oceanic processes feed back to the atmosphere.
Anna J. Hauschild (MSc student)
Anna is doing her master thesis on the oxygen dynamics in shallow coastal waters. She focuses on the local Baltic sea and compares a 3D model to measurement data from several monitoring stations. The final goal would be a detailed understanding of the fish dying event in October 2025.
K. Marijke Kähler (MSc student)
Marijke is one of our Master students working for the SkaMix project, looking at frontal mixing processes in the Skagerrak. To do so, she analyses observational data from a turbulence microstructure profiler and a near-surface drifter system, which she also helped to collect.
Recent Graduands
Johannes Paulsen (MSc 2026)
Johannes finished his Master Thesis with the title "Numerical Analysis of Secondary Circulation in Submesoscale Ocean Surface Layer Fronts" in 2026.
Torben Arne Voß (MSc 2025)
Torben finished his Master Thesis with the title "Modelling the Influcence of near-bottom Turbulence caused by Surface Waves on the Sediment-Water Exchange of Oxygen" in 2025. Afterwards he started his PhD in the Estuarine and Coastal Processes (ECOP) working group, so we are lucky to keep him at IOW.
Hannes Pankrath (MSc 2025)
Hannes finished his Masters Thesis on the topic "Characterizing Deep Cycle Turbulence in the Equatorial Undercurrent with a 1D Statistical Model" in 2025. In this work, he investigated the diurnal behavior of mixing in the upper equatorial ocean employing the General Ocean Turbulence Model (GOTM). Currently, Hannes is doing his PhD at Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics (IAP) Kühlungsborn in the Modelling department where he investigates climate change in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region.
Mira Schmitt (PhD 2024) and Jen-Ping Peng (PhD 2020)
Mira (left side in the picture) is a former PhD student, who obtained her degree in 2024. In ther thesis, she investigated the influence of so-called 'diurnal warm layers', i.e. warm layers that form on the ocean surface during the day, especially in the tropics, due to solar radiation. Mira was also interested in freshwater layers that remain on the ocean surface after heavy rainfall and the feedback of these processes with the atmosphere.
Jen-Ping obtained his PhD in 2020 with a thesis focusing on frontal instability and turbulence, based on observational data from the South Atlantic. After a stay as a postdoc in the group of Nicole Jones at the University of Western Australia, he is now located at IMEDEA on the beautiful island of Mallorca (Spain).