Patrick Kilian did his undergrad in Physics in Würzburg, Germany. He
then went to UNM and obtained a master of science in 2007. Despite
falling in love with the Land of Enchantment he returned to Wuerzburg
where he became interested in plasma physics. Together with two other
students he wrote his own massively parallel particle-in-cell code that
is still in use by several researchers. In 2010 he obtained a diploma in
physics with a thesis on laser-plasma interaction. He continued with
plasma physics in the group of Prof. Felix Spanier and worked on CME
driven shocks in the solar wind for his PhD. In 2013-2015 he worked on
electron acceleration at the Hermean bow shock with Prof. Joerg Buechner
at the Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research in Goettingen,
Germany. He then did a postdoc at the Centre for Space Research in
Potchefstroom, South Africa before coming back to New Mexico in 2018.
Until 2020 he was a Chick Keller Postdoctoral Fellow at the Los Alamos
National Lab where he studied magnetic reconnection in astrophysical
systems, before joining SSI to work on topics related to the solar wind
again.