Ties Behnke

Experimental Particle Physics

Ties Behnke is lead scientist at DESY, working in the field of experimental particle physics. For many years, he has been working in the field of weak interaction physics, including the measurement of Standard Model parameters with heavy quarks and the development of experimental methods and detectors. He participated in the D0 experiment at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, the OPAL experiment at the LEP electron-positron collider, and led the measurement of electron polarisation at HERA. He was a member of the TESLA team at DESY, and later worked on the International Linear Collider, ILC. Here he coordinated an international team of scientists who proposed a detector concept for an experiment at high energy electron positron colliders, the ILD experiment.

Since 2012 he is the speaker of the Helmholtz Programme "Matter and Technologies" which deals with enabling technologies for the research field matter, in the area of accelerators, detectors and computing. In 2021 he was interim director of particle physics at DESY. In his own research Ties Behnke is interested in electroweak physics, and in tracking detectors, for example, time projection chambers or semi-conductor detectors. 

Academic career

2021-2023
DESY Director in charge of particle physics (interim)
2002-2003
Guest scientist, SLAC, Stanford, USA
Since 1998
Lead scientist, Hamburg
1995-1998
Tenured staff scientist, CERN
1991-1995
Postdoc, University of Hamburg and DESY
1989-1991
CERN fellow, OPAL experiment
1989
PhD in physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook
1984
Master of arts (physics) State University of New York at Stony Brook
1980-1984
University education at Würzburg University and State University of New York at Stony Brook

 

Memberships

Since 2012
Speaker of the programme “Matter and Technology” of the Helmholtz Association
Since 2008
Scientific Coordinator of the Helmholtz Alliance “Physics at the Terascale”
Since 2007
Spokesman of the ILD experiment at the International Linear Collider
2004-2014
Head of Scientific Council at DESY
1999-2007
Speaker of the experiment “POL2000” for measuring polarisation at the HERA storage ring
Since 1998
Member of various national and international review committees and advisory boards