Dr. Claudia Thomsen is the scientific manager and founder of Phytolutions GmbH. She studied and gained a doctorate in Kiel in 1993 in biological oceanography, with an emphasis on phytoplankton and geochemistry. Up until her job with the Jacobs University’s Greenhouse Mitigation Project, she worked with various oceanography institutes in Kiel, Great Britain, Norway and the USA. The Danish-born scientist has been self-employed since 2006.
Professor Dr. Stefan Rill is the commercial managing director and is our company’s ‘Business Angel’, investing significant capital, know-how and contacts. The engineer for air and space technology studied in Berlin and Stanford. After his postdoctorate, he worked as a research and development engineer for the Airbus predecessor MBB and Airbus. In 1993, he was appointed to the chair of aerodynamics at the University of Bremen. Between 1996 and 2008, he built one of the largest German engineering service companies of the aircraft industry.
Dr. Joachim Henjes is Head of Biology at Phytolutions GmbH. He studied biology in Bremen and gained a doctorate in 2004 in biological oceanography. Before his job as an expert for mixed algae cultures and autecology of marine plankton organisms, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the field of biological oceanography at the Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar Research and Oceanography in Bremerhaven. Besides his work in one of the most respected marine institutes of the world, he was lecturer at the University of Bremen.
Professor Dr. Laurenz Thomsen is Phytolutions’ scientific advisor and was significantly involved in its establishment. He studied and gained a doctorate in Kiel in biological oceanography. After his postdoctoral lecture qualification came research residencies in Norway, Holland and USA, where - amongst other things - he also led the OceanGreenhouse Project. In 2001, he was appointed professor at Jacobs University, where he has since been leading ’OceanLab’. As an adjunct professor, he has also been working at the University of Washington, Seattle since 2002.
Dr. C. Thomsen, Prof. Dr. S. Rill (r.n.l) Foto: Christoph Busse