Dietrich Stauffer

Dietrich Stauffer (6 February 1943 – 6 August 2019) was a German professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cologne. He is known in particular for his work on percolation theory, cellular automata and computational physics.

Life and work Stauffer was born in Bonn in 1943, one of the four children of theologian Ethelbert Stauffer. He studied physics in Munich, gaining a PhD in 1970 with a thesis on phase transitions and the superfluidity of helium. He then did post-doctoral work in the United States on phase transitions and nucleation before returning to Germany to work with Kurt Binder at Saarland University. In 1975 he became eligible for a professorship on completion of his habilitation. Two years later he was appointed associate professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cologne, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Stauffer published 620 articles and six books, as well as editing the Annual Reviews of Computational Physics and serving as a member of the editorial board of a number of journals. He died in August 2019.