Prof. Dr.
Thomas Speck
Institute for Biology II
Group: Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg
University of Freiburg

Thomas Speck studied biology at the University of Freiburg (PhD 1990) and received 1996 the venia legendi for botany & biophysics. After a visiting professorship at the University of Vienna he was offered professorships at the Humboldt-University in Berlin and at the University of Freiburg where he acted from 2002 until 2006 associate professor for ‘Botany’ and director of the Botanic Garden. After declining the offer of a full professorship and the directorship in general of the Botanic Garden at the Freie University Berlin he became in 2006 full professor for ‘Botany: Functional Morphology and Biomimetics’ in Freiburg.

He is spokesperson of the Competence Network Biomimetics, vice-president of BIOKON international, and vice-chair of the Society for Technical Biology and Bionics. Thomas Speck is deputy director of the Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bio-Inspired Technologies (FIT), scientific member of the Materials Research Centre Freiburg (FMF) and co-spokesperson of the CRC 141 „Biological Design and Integrative Structures – Analysis, Simulation and Implementation in Architecture” and of the Cluster of Excelllence livMatS « Living, Adaptive, and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems ».

He received several scientific awards, is (co-)editor of several scientific books and journals and has published more than 250 scientific articles in peer reviewed Journals & Books in the fields of functional morphology, biomechanics, biomimetics, evolutionary biology and palaeobotany.