Geisel is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and professor of theoretical physics at the University of Göttingen.
His research is primarily concerned with the behavior of complex systems ranging from theoretical investigations in quantum chaos to nonlinear phenomena occurring in the brain.
[1] Since 2013, Theo Geisel is member of the Göttingen Academy of Science,[2] the oldest continually existing such institution in Germany.
Theo Geisel is known for fundamental research on nonlinear and stochastic dynamics with applications in a broad range of complex living and non-living systems.
He is leading in transferring methods between fields, including randomly appearing motion known in chaos theory to solid state physics, pattern formation theory established for fluids to the analysis of neural circuits,[3] the discovery of new mathematical objects called unstable attractors in neuronal models[4] and recently concepts from the physics of nano-structures to the predictability of tsunami waves.