Dr. Alexander Southan is a Senior Research Scientist in the CSF Materials since 2023. His research focuses around functional bio-based or synthetic hydrogels and polymers. Research projects may involve polymer synthesis and characterization, the investigation of cross-linking chemistry, as well as the formulation and processing of soft materials into sensors, adsorbers, drug delivery systems, biomaterials, or membranes (among other things).

Before joining the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, he was leader of the research group “Chemical and Physical Interfaces” at the Institute of Interfacial Engineering and Plasma Technology (University of Stuttgart). He also was a team leader in the interdisciplinary Projekthaus NanoBioMater at the University of Stuttgart, operating at the interface between chemistry, materials science, biology, and engineering.

Dr. Alexander Southan studied chemistry with a focus on macromolecular chemistry at the Philipps-University of Marburg (Germany) and Bangor University (UK). During his diploma thesis in the group of Prof. Dr. Markus Motzkus, he dealt with the development of coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) in confocal multiplex imaging for the investigation of chemical reactions in polymer matrices. In 2014, Alexander Southan received his doctorate from the University of Stuttgart (PhD supervisor: Prof. Dr. Günter Tovar). The title of his dissertation is "Functional Poly(ethylene glycol)-based Polymers for Polymer Network Formation by Side-product Free Reactions".

polymers hydrogels cross-linking chemistry additive manufacturing