Ursula van Rienen’s research focuses on numerical simulation of the interaction of electromagnetic fields with biological tissue. Another area of her research includes modelling and simulation of accelerator physics and accelerator technology.
Prof. van Rienen received a diploma degree in Mathematics (1983) from Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany, and her doctoral degree in Applied Mathematics (1989) from Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, where she also habilitated in Electromagnetic Field Theory and Scientific Computing (1997). Since 1997 she has held the chair of Electromagnetic Field Theory at the University of Rostock, Germany.
From 2008 to 2017, she was the speaker of the DFG Research Training Group 1505, “Analysis and Simulation of Electric Interactions between Implants and Biosystems – welisa”. Since 2017 she has been the spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Centre 1270, “ELectrically Active ImplaNts – ELAINE”.
Regarding the context of deep brain stimulation (DBS), the open-source simulation platform “OSS-DBS” for deep brain stimulation has been developed in her group. It is available through https://github.com/SFB-ELAINE/OSS-DBS. The software OSS-DBS is also freely distributed as a computational backend within the toolbox Lead DBS. Besides previous research on DBS, OSS-DBS is a central starting point for her research on advanced modelling of electric fields and the neural activation around the electrode to study the impact of DBS on surrounding tissue in the Service Project S01.