Bio/Research

Throughout most of his career, Hendrik’s research interests have been at the intersection between physical and computational sciences. That includes artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), physics-based simulations, high-performance computing, geoinformatics with the overall goal to accelerate scientific discovery, specifically in application domains of climate, sustainability and energy. 

Hendrik received his PhD from the University of Göttingen in Germany. During his thesis he developed new laser spectroscopic techniques to investigate the dynamics and kinetics of transient, short-lived radicals, which are relevant in atmospheric processes. He was one of the first to characterize a whole series of bimolecular complex-forming reactions under extended temperature and pressure ranges.  

In 1995 Hendrik joined JILA, which is a joint institute between the University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, as a Research Associate in Boulder, Colorado. During his tenure at JILA he developed novel near-field optical microscopes to study single molecules at high spatial resolution. He demonstrated fluorescence enhancement effects in the vicinity of an optical antenna (i.e., in form of a scanning nanoscale probe tip), which is the basis of all of today’s high resolution near-field microscopes. He also made contributions to the discovery of a universal power law governing the blinking dynamics of single quantum dots. 

In 1999 he joined IBM Research at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Initially, Hendrik focused on high density magnetic data recording via thermal near-field coupling. This technology (commonly referred to as thermally assisted recording (=TAR) or heat assisted magnetic recording (= HAMR) is the foundation for overcoming the superparamagnetic, which is enabling the industry to continue to increase storage densities of magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs). Later, as an IBM Research Staff Member, Hendrik contributed to the development of the first protrusion control technology (TPC) in IBM, which allows sub-Angstrom resolution control of fly heights of recording heads in HDDs. TPC is today in every high- performance hard disk drive. In 2000 Hendrik demonstrated a new phase-change memory cell technology, which was the basis for IBM to launch its phase-change memory program. 

Between 2004 and 2016, Hendrik lead the Physical Analytics program in IBM Research, as a Manager and Principal Research Staff Member. Physical Analytics is a term, which IBM coined to describe the emerging field at the intersection of big IoT (=Internet of Things) data, physical modeling, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Between 2005 and 2009 he worked on energy and thermal management technologies from the device all the way to large scale computing system level. For example, he invented a new technique to measure power distributions of chips under full operations. This method is today extensively used for high-performance microprocessor design. One of Hendrik’s main accomplishments during that time was the invention and development of IBM’s Measurement and Management Technologies (MMT) for improving energy efficiency of data centers and buildings. These technologies were productized by IBM in 2005 and has been deployed commercially word-wide more than 1000 times thereby not only contributing to IBM’s data center businesses but also helping to meet sustainability goals.

During that time, Hendrik led 4 multi-million-dollar Department of Energy funded projects (3 as the PI), all aimed at developing energy and environmental management technologies. Among those programs, Hendrik pioneered the use of AI and ML to improve the accuracy of weather and renewable energy forecasting. This work was not only the foundation for IBM acquiring the Weather Company, but it also drove the development of a large-scale geospatial data and analytics platform, which is commonly referred to as IBM PAIRS (which is stands for Physical Analytics Integrated Repository System).  

Between 2016 and 2019 Hendrik led as a Distinguished Research Staff Member and Senior Manager, the invention and development of IBM PAIRS, which is a highly scalable geospatial data base, specifically designed to accelerate and enable complex discovery functions on rasterized geospatial information. PAIRS was the basis for IBM’s work in Precision Agriculture which Hendrik led as well. To assist the commercialization of PAIRS and to drive the integration of PAIRS within the IBM Weather Company Business, Hendrik left IBM Research and joined IBM Software to become the Chief Scientist for AI Applications and Weather Business Solutions. As result of this work, PAIRS is today the backbone of all geospatial AI and data processing for IBM’s Weather Business Solutions, which includes a range of applications such as outage prediction, renewable forecasting, vegetation management, precision agriculture (irrigation, crop production etc.), climate risks etc.  

In 2021 Hendrik returned to IBM Research to help with launch of a global research program for climate and sustainability. Between 2021 and 2024 Hendrik helped to lead the global IBM Research Climate and Sustainability Research with more than 80 researchers in thirteen laboratories around the globe. This research program has led to the development of the first geospatial foundation models for weather and earth observation. Hendrik has also been spearheading the development of AI foundation models for the electric grid. In 2024 he was awarded another $20M DoE grant for AI-enabled, multi-modal, high resolution Methane inventory quantification.    

Hendrik has authored and co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers and holds over 180 patents and has over 100 pending patent applications. Hendrik is an IBM Master Inventor, a member to the IBM Academy of Technology and has served on governmental committees such as the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation and as an industrial advisor to universities. Hendrik won several awards including the 2016 AIP Prize for Industrial Applications of Physics. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a senior member of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the Optical Society of America (OSA), and the NY Academy of Sciences. He is a Visiting Professor at Yamagata University in Japan and Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Links

Google Scholar

Research Gate

ORCID ID