Luca Gerhards
I am a theoretical chemist and Carl von Ossietzky Young Researcher Fellow at the Institute of Physics, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany. My work combines quantum chemistry, spin dynamics and molecular simulation to understand how microscopic spin and electronic processes become experimentally measurable chemical and biological effects.
I studied chemistry at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, completing my degree in 2015, my Master’s degree in 2017 and my PhD in chemistry in 2021. I subsequently moved into biomolecular and spin-dynamics research at the Institute of Physics.
My current scientific focus includes:
- radical-pair and spin-selective reaction dynamics;
- magnetic-field effects in chemical and biological systems;
- spin relaxation and open quantum systems;
- multiscale simulations of proteins and photoactive biomolecules;
- electron transfer and flavin/cryptochrome photochemistry;
- photo-CIDNP, hyperpolarization, NMR and EPR;
- DFT, TD-DFT and multireference electronic-structure theory;
- scientific software and high-performance spin-dynamics algorithms.
I am the lead developer of MolSpin, where I work on general and scalable methods for molecular spin dynamics and magnetic-resonance simulations.
Teaching and scientific communication
In 2026 I taught at the international Spin-Chemistry summer school. On 13 February 2026, I gave the invited talk “Is the radical pair mechanism relevant for radiation protection?” at the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) in Munich.
Profiles and contact
- Email: luca.gerhards@uni-oldenburg.de
- ORCID: 0000-0002-8404-2421
- Google Scholar: publication and citation profile
- ResearchGate: Luca Gerhards
- GitHub: Das0Mann
- MolSpin: molspin.eu