Daniela Kraft and her research are a familiar fixture at the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). Both have been awarded fellowships, grants and frequent media coverage. Effective July 1, Kraft has been appointed professor of Experimental physics, particularly in soft and biological matter.

Soft matter is all around us: from fluids to bacteria to proteins. Kraft and her team investigate such objects’ self-organisation, a phenomenon where chaotic systems order themselves spontaneously. It’s a process that allows water to freeze into ice, bacteria to move together, and proteins to arrange themselves into functional structures. 

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Daniela Kraft studied Physics in Würzburg, Germany, and at the University of Texas in the United States. For her PhD research in physical chemistry at Utrecht University, she explored soft and biological systems. With a Rubicon grant from NWO she then worked as a postdoc at the Center for Soft Matter Research in New York. In 2013 she returned to the Netherlands to start her own research group in soft and biological matter in Leiden.