Dr. Max M. Tilzer
Professor of Aquatic Ecology
Department of Biology
University of Constance
D-78457 Konstanz, Germany

Phone: (+49) (0)7531 / 88-4194
Fax: (+49) (0)7531 / 88-4219
Home phone: (+49) (0)7533 / 97663
Cell phone: (+49) (0)172 646 0227
E-Mail

Curriculum Vitae

 

Max M. Tilzer was born in Austria in 1939. He studied Biology at the University of Vienna where he received his Ph. D. in 1967. His Ph.D.-Thesis was devoted to the study of the interstitial fauna of two Alpine high-mountain streams. From 1967 till the end of 1973 he worked on the production process of phytoplankton and pelagic bacteria in an Austrian high-mountain lake at the University of Innsbruck, Austria within the International Biological Program, coordinated by UNESCO. At the end of his tenure with the University of Innsbruck he was awarded the degree of Docent which then in Europe was an important requirement for becoming a University Professor.
Between 1974 and 1976 he was associated with the Tahoe Research Group of the University of California at Davis, investigating the light dependence of phytoplankton photosynthesis in highly unproductive Lake Tahoe. From California he moved to West Berlin and became Associated Professor of Limnology with the Technical University of Berlin. During his brief appointment in Berlin he established a small limnology group, that has been mainly devoted to research on heavily polluted waters within the city limits of Berlin.
In 1978 he was appointed Director of the Limnological Institute of the University of Constance, Germany and held the then only Chair of Limnology in Germany. During this time he inaugurated and directed a multi-disciplinary ecosystem-oriented research program at Lake Constance. His own research focused on phytoplankton dynamics and productivity. Between 1980 and 1987 he participated in four oceanographic research cruises to the Southern Ocean, three of them on the then new German Polar research vessel “Polarstern”. His oceanographic research was mainly dealing with the production process of phytoplankton under the extreme environmental conditions of the Antarctic Ocean, in particular the prevailing extremely low water temperatures.
In 1992 he for five years became Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) at Bremerhaven, which is the central German research facility engaged in polar research over a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. Of main concern is the role of the Polar Regions in the control of the global climate. The AWI operates the R.V. “Polarstern” and coordinates its complex cruise schedule in both Polar Regions. The AWI also is responsible for several land-based research stations both in the Antarctic and on Svalbard.
In 1997 he returned to Constance where he was engaged in research and teaching in both marine and freshwater systems, including the multi-national Red Sea Program on the Gulf of Aqaba which was co-coordinated by the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology at Bremen. Between 1996 and 2000 he was member of the Scientific Advisory Council on Global Change to the German Federal Government (WBGU). During his tenure with the WBGU four annual reports were compiled devoted to major global environmental issues: Global Freshwater, Environmental Hazards, Threats to the Biosphere, and Global Environmental Policies. He was project leader within the Special Collaborative Program (SFB 454) “The littoral Zone of Lake Constance”. His project was concerned with species and biomass dynamics and productivity of the biofilm (periphyton) community on the shores of Lake Constance. Max Tilzer will retire from active duty in the fall of 2004.
His basic research in Aquatic Ecology, has been mainly devoted to the biological production process of aquatic habitats (lakes and the ocean), In addition, he is strongly interested in global environmental issues such as the control of the world climate, the global freshwater crisis, world population growth, and sustainable development. He has been organizing evening lecture series at the University of Konstanz (Studium Generale) devoted to some of the above-mentioned general topics, which go beyond the realm of natural sciences. Moreover, he has a strong interest in Paleoecology from a present-day ecologist’s perspective. On this subject, a textbook is currently in preparation, which is to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Max Tilzer frequently is invited to guest lectures devoted to all of the above-mentioned topics.

Since age 12, Max Tilzer has been actively engaged in art photography with emphasis on nature photography.

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