Between 1999 and 2004 he served as managing director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR) at Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Jürgen Warnatz studied physics at Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany, and graduated in 1969.
His diploma thesis was titled "Untersuchungen über die Reaktion von Stickstoffatomen mit Propin" (Studies of nitrogen atom reactions with propyne).
In 1971, he finished his doctorate of physical chemistry at Göttingen University under Heinz Georg Wagner, having written his doctorate thesis on "Bestimmung der Geschwindigkeitskonstanten für Reaktionen von Fluoratomen in der Gasphase" (Identification of velocity constants for fluorine atom reactions in the gas phase).
Jürgen Warnatz’ general research approach was modeling and simulation of chemical reactive flows, particularly looking at molecular reactions involved and transport processes.