Professor Linn Leppert PhD

• University Teaching Qualification (BKO), University of Twente, 2022
• PhD in Physics (summa cum laude), University of Bayreuth, 2013
• Certificate Elite Network Bavaria Graduate Program Macromolecular Science, 2012
• Diploma in Physics, University of Bayreuth, 2009

Linn Leppert is a computational physicist working at the intersection of materials science, physics and chemistry. She studied physics at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, graduating with a Diploma in Physics in 2009. She remained at Bayreuth for her doctoral work, completing her PhD in Physics summa cum laude in 2013 under the supervision of Professor Stephan Kümmel. Her dissertation, on the structural and electronic properties of transition metal nanoalloys and magnetic compounds, was awarded the Dissertation Award of the City of Bayreuth.

Following her doctorate, she was awarded a Feodor-Lynen Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and joined the group of Professor Jeff Neaton at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. There, she broadened her research towards the electronic and excited-state structure of complex semiconductors and their optical properties using many-body perturbation theory.

In 2017, she returned to the University of Bayreuth as a Principal Investigator with a grant from the Elite Network of Bavaria, supporting her independent research group. In 2020, she moved to the University of Twente in the Netherlands as Assistant Professor with subsequent promotion to Associate Professor. At Twente, she attracted significant competitive funding and major high-performance computing allocations through INCITE, PRACE and EuroHPC. She also received the Education Prize of the Applied Physics program in 2025 for co-designing and coordinating a new Minor in Sustainability and Climate Physics. She joined University of Birmingham in April 2026 as 125th Anniversary Chair and Professor of Theoretical Materials Science in the School of Metallurgy and Materials.

Linn’s research focuses on the development and application of numerical simulation methods, in particular many-body perturbation theory and density functional theory, for understanding excited electronic states and their interactions in complex semiconductor materials, with applications in optoelectronics, photovoltaics and quantum technologies.

Beyond her research, Linn has been active in the broader scientific community. She was a member of the Young Academy of Europe from 2018, serving on its board from 2021 to 2024 and subsequently joining its Advisory Board. She is a founding member of Computational Sciences NL, where she served on the Strategy Board as treasurer. She has also engaged in science policy and outreach, including published work on gender equity in academia.

The research group develops and applies first-principles simulation methods, in particular many-body perturbation theory in the GW approximation combined with the Bethe-Salpeter equation (GW+BSE), to study excited electronic states and light-matter interactions in complex semiconductors. We combine these methods with machine-learned interatomic potentials which allow us to describe structural dynamics and dynamic disorder. A recent focus of the group are two-dimensional halide perovskites, a materials family whose optoelectronic properties can be tuned through composition, structure, and temperature in ways that are not yet atomistically understood. Current research directions include the development of scalable GW+BSE workflows for coupled spin-exciton-lattice dynamics, embedding strategies for treating excitons in structurally realistic environments, and first-principles predictions of optoelectronic observables such as radiative lifetimes, linewidths, and polarisation. These topics sit at the interface of condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and materials science, with applications in optoelectronics and quantum technologies.

Prospective doctoral students with a strong background in physics, chemistry or materials science and an interest in computational and theoretical approaches are encouraged to get in touch.