Professor Rolf Walter Lortz obtained his diploma degree (equivalent to MPhil) in physics with honors (1999) and his PhD degree (2002) from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany (now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). After one year of postdoc in the Institute of Solid State Physics in the Research Center of Karlsruhe, he took up a position as Senior Research and Teaching Associate ("Maitre Assistant") in the Condensed Matter Physics Department of the University of Geneva from 2003 to 2008. He joined the Physics Department of HKUST in 2008. Prof Lortz received 2015 School of Science Teaching Award.

Professor Lortz’s laboratory is specialized in thermodynamic and electric transport experiments on unconventional superconductors and materials with novel electronic properties. It is equipped with state-of the art experimental techniques for high-resolution specific heat, DC magnetization and thermal expansion measurements, point-contact spectroscopy, thermoelectrical transport, high pressure experiments, experiments in high magnetic fields and at low temperatures down to 250 mK. His research interests include topological superconductivity, interfacial superconductivity, low dimensional superconductivity in carbon nanotubes and ultrathin nanowire arrays, exotic magnetic-field-induced superconducting phases such as the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state, materials with strong electronic correlations, quantum magnetism and magnetic skyrmion phases.