Prof. Dr. Nicolas R. Gauger received his Master in Mathematics (Dipl.-Math.) from Leibniz University of Hanover in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Dr.rer.nat.) from Braunschweig University of Technology in 2003. From 1998 to 2010 he was Research Scientist in the field of Numerical Methods for Aerodynamics at German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Braunschweig. Furthermore, he was appointed as Assistant Professor (Jun.-Prof., W1) for Applied Mathematics at the Department of Mathematics of the Humboldt University Berlin from 2005 to 2010. In addition, he was Member of the DFG Research Center MATHEON (Mathematics for Key Technologies) in Berlin from 2006 to 2010. Then, from 2010 to 2014, he was Associate Professor (W2) for Computational Mathematics at the Department of Mathematics and the Center for Computational Engineering Science (CCES) at RWTH Aachen University. Furthermore, from March to August 2014, he was Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA. Since September 2014 he is now Chairholder for Scientific Computing at University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, where he is Full Professor (W3) at the Department of Mathematics as well as Department of Computer Science. Additionally, since February 2015, he is Director of the Computing Center (RHRZ) at University of Kaiserslautern-Landau. Furthermore, he was from 2010 to 2019 Principal Investigator at the Aachen Institute for Advanced Study in Computational Engineering Science (AICES), which was a Graduate School funded by the German Excellence Initiative; and from 2014 to 2019 he was in addition Principal Investigator at the Center for Mathematical and Computational Modelling – (CM)^2 – of University of Kaiserslautern-Landau. In March 2016, he became vice spokesperson of the Research and Development Lab ‘Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence’ of the Fraunhofer Performance Center ‘Simulation- and Software-based Innovation’. In August 2018 he has been named an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). From 2019 to 2024 he was Principal Investigator at the Research Initiative ‘Mathematics Applied to Real-World Problems’ – MathApp – and since 2024 he is now Principal Investigator at the subsequent Research Initiative ‘Modelling, Simulation and Optimisation’ – MSO – at University of Kaiserslautern-Landau.

His research areas are: Nonlinear Optimization, Numerical Optimization, Optimization and Control with PDEs, Aerodynamic Shape Optimization in Multidisciplinary Design Context, Optimal Active Flow Control, Topology Optimization, Robust Design, Partial Differential Equations, Adjoint State Equations, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Aeroacoustics (CAA), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), Algorithmic Differentiation (AD), Machine Learning (ML), and High-Performance Computing (HPC).

Prof. Gauger has published more than 230 scientific papers.

Furthermore, he is member of the Managing Board of ERCOFTAC (European Research Community on Flow, Turbulence and Combustion) as well as Member of the Steering Committee of the ERCOFTAC Special Interest Group on Design Optimization. He is also a member of the Management Board of NHR South-West, which is a collaboration of Goethe University Frankfurt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau and Saarland University, embedded into the German National High Performance Computing (NHR) association.