Dr Jacek Raddatz Appointed Extraordinary Professor at Kiel University

What did the ocean look like thousands or even millions of years ago? And what do the traces left by that era in marine organisms and sediments tell us? Dr Jacek Raddatz is getting to the bottom of these questions. Among other things, he is investigating how cold-water corals and their habitats have evolved over long periods of time. To this end, he analyses the chemical composition of marine calcifying organisms. These can provide clues as to the environmental conditions under which the organisms once lived.

Raddatz’s scientific career is closely linked to Kiel. After completing his studies at the University of Osnabrück, with his diploma-thesis carried out at the Alfred Wegener Institute, the graduate geographer joined GEOMAR as a PhD student in 2008 and was awarded his doctorate in 2012 at Kiel University. His thesis focused on the formation, growth and demise of a cold-water coral mound in the North Atlantic. He subsequently remained at GEOMAR as a postdoctoral researcher until 2015, when he moved to a post as an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt. In 2019, he completed his habilitation there in the field of geology. He has been a Privatdozent since 2020. Raddatz returned to GEOMAR as a Senior Scientist in 2024. 

With this extraordinary professorship, Raddatz now aims to strengthen the profile of the reserarch unit paleo-oceanography and broaden its scope. He is brimming with ideas and wishes to use them to intensify existing collaborations with the CAU, as well as within the various research areas at GEOMAR.