Wolf Gero Schmidt studied physics in Jena, Germany. He graduated in physics in 1993, and received his Ph.D. degree in 1997 (Bechstedt group), followed by a post-doctoral stay at North Carolina State University (Bernholc group). In 2005 he became Associate Professor at Massey University, New Zealand. Since 2006, he has been a Full Professor of Theoretical Physics at Paderborn University, Germany. His research interests are the physics and chemistry of surfaces and interfaces, nanoscale science, and computational physics.