People

Group

Lab members

Katja M. Taute

principal investigator

Katja studied physics at the University of Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. After her doctoral work in physics at the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics at the University of Texas at Austin, she completed a postdoc in systems biophysics at FOM Institute AMOLF, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She started her first lab as a Rowland Fellow at the Rowland Institute at Harvard in 2016. After a stint as a Deputy Professor of Microbiology at LMU Munich, Katja moved back to Leipzig University in 2023. She now holds a Professorship in Systems Biophysics of Microbial Dynamics at the Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics.

BIO

Christian Westendorf

senior postdoc

Christian studied biology at the universities of Rostock and Jena, Germany and graduated in physics at the MPI for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the University of Goettingen, respectively. He joined the lab in fall 2023.

Valentin Slepukhin

affiliated postdoc

Valentin did his Bachelor and Masters at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in theoretical high energy physics, and his Ph.D. at UCLA, Los Angeles, in soft matter physics under the supervision of Prof. Alex Levine. Currently, Valentin works as an independent postdoc in collaboration with Oskar Hallatschek, UC Berkeley.

Birgit Koch

lab manager

Birgit studied biotechnology at the University of applied sciences in Koethen, Germany and graduated at the University of Halle, Germany. She joined the lab alongside with Christian in fall 2023 as the lab manager.

Saba Telele

PhD student

Saba studied biochemistry at the Universities of Göttingen and Freiburg, Germany. She joined the lab as a PhD student in May 2024.

Yundon Jeong

PhD student

Yundon studied physics at Hiroshima and Kyoto University in Japan, and worked as a researcher in bio-imaging at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. He joined the lab as a PhD student in June 2024.

Till Pfaff

researcher

After finishing his MSc in physics, Till joined the group in fall 2024 to work on an improved 3D tracking algorithm.

Silke Borchert

lab assistent

Silke finished her medical laboratory assisstant education at the University of Leipzig. She then worked for Analytik jena, Qiagen Leipzig, INDICAL Leipzig and the Leipzig University hospital before joining the Taute lab in May 2024.

Kerstin Lohse

administrative support

Kerstin has been a secretary at Leipzig University since 2002. First and until February 2012 in the rector's office and since March 2012 at the Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics.