Professor Bockstaller received his diploma in Chemistry from the Technical University of Karlsruhe (Germany) and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz, Germany). He was scientific assistant at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany) and postdoctoral associate at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He came to Carnegie Mellon from the Technical University of Aachen (Germany) where he held a Habilitation position. He is a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation and Emmy Noether grant recipient of the German Science Foundation.

Polymer morphology, polymer-based nanostructures; polymer-based nanoparticle assemblies; phase behavior and structure-property relations (optical/magnetic) of organic-inorganic heterogeneous materials; phase behavior of water-soluble polymers (synthetic and biological) under in-vivo conditions; field-responsive nanoparticles for drug delivery; X-ray and neutron scattering; Electron microscopy