From 2016 to 2022, Michael Sentef was head of a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute for Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg, funded by the German Research Foundation as part of the Emmy Noether Programme. For several months, he was also an associate professor of theoretical quantum physics at the University of Bristol (UK).

Michael Sentef studied physics at the University of Augsburg and received his PhD there in 2010 with a thesis on the numerical simulation of two-dimensional strongly correlated quantum many-body systems. He subsequently held a postdoctoral position at Stanford University and its SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory from 2011 to 2014. There, he became interested in materials interacting with strong laser fields and on ultrashort time scales in order to specifically modify their properties. Postdoctoral stays at the University of Bonn and the MPSD Hamburg followed before he successfully acquired the Emmy Noether group in 2016.

At the University of Bremen, Michael Sentef aims to strengthen the connection between materials research and fundamental questions of quantum many-body physics and light-matter interaction, and to further develop methods for the computer simulation of realistic light-matter interfaces. For this, new materials that are particularly well suited for such interfaces and also promise potential applications, such as atomically thin 2D materials, are to be identified through the close connection of theory and experiment. Sentef's research aims to help turn foundation research into future applications, for example in optoelectronics and energy-efficient green quantum technologies.