T. Ackemann studied physics at the University of Goettingen (Germany), Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland) and the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster (Germany). There he received his Diplom in physics in 1992, his Dr. rer. nat (PhD) in 1996, and his habilitation in 2002. From 1996 to 2005 he was a Wissenschaftlicher Assistant and then Hochschuldozent at the University of Muenster. In 1998 and 1999 he was working as a postdoc at the Institut Non Lineaire de Nice with a Feodor-Lynen fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. In May 2005 he joined the Photonics Group of the Department of Physics at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (Scotland, UK). He is Professor of Nonlinear Photonics since Nov. 2012. His research interest are Nonlinear Photonics in semiconductors and cold atoms, in particular using cold atoms to explore self-organization of matter and simulation of many-body systems.