Chair of Organic Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin
Professor Senge was born in Silbach, Germany in 1961. After service in the Air Force he studied chemistry in Freiburg, Amherst, Marburg and Lincoln and graduated from the Philipps Universität Marburg in 1986. After a Ph.D. thesis in plant biochemistry with Prof. Horst Senger in Marburg (1989) and a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Kevin M. Smith at UC Davis, he moved to the Freie Universität Berlin and received his habilitation in Organic Chemistry in 1996. From 1996 on he was a Heisenberg fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin and UC Davis and held visiting professorships at Greifswald and Potsdam. In 2002 he was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University Potsdam and since 2005 holds the Chair of Organic Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin. He was the recipient of fellowships from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and he was named a Science Foundation Ireland Research Professor. His main interests are the chemistry and biochemistry of tetrapyrroles, photobiology, crystallography and medicinal and bioorganic chemistry.
Professor Senge has published over 280 scientific articles and holds one patent. He has contributed to more than 300 posters and presentations and was invited to over 125 talks. He is also very engaged in outreach programs, visiting schools and encouraging students to pursue science.