Volker Branding

ORCID: 0000-0002-1535-1474

Contact Information

University of Rostock
Institute for Mathematics
Ulmenstraße 69
18057 Rostock, Germany
E-Mail: volker[dot]branding[at]uni-rostock[dot]de

Research interests

My research interests are at the intersection of differential geometry, geometric analysis and mathematical physics. In particular, I am interested in harmonic maps and their higher order generalizations such as biharmonic maps. Moreover, I investigate action functionals that arise in theoretical physics with the tools of the geometric calculus of variations.

Short CV

• since 08/2025: Professor at University of Rostock
• 2019: Habilitation at University of Vienna
• 01/2017 - 07/2025: Senior Postdoc at University of Vienna
• 01/2013 - 12/2016: Universitätsassistent at TU Wien
• 12/2012: PhD at University of Potsdam

Research Group

Current Members

• Rodrigo Avalos (Postdoc)
• Alejandro Penuela Diaz (Postdoc)
• Jan Heck (PhD student)

Associated members

• Adam Lindström (PhD student at Uni Vienna, supported by FWF)
• Marko Sobak (Postdoc at Uni Vienna, supported by FWF)

Former members

• 2023 - 2025: Hui Liu (PhD student, visited from Fudan University)
• 2023 - 2024: Weijia Li (PhD student, visited from Guangxi University)

Guests

A list of our guests can be found here.

Publications and Preprints

• All of my publications are freely available on arxiv.
• Publications on Google Scholar
• My Researchgate profile
• A complete list of my publications can be found here.

Projects and Prizes

• P 36862: The standard model as a geometric variational problem
  Stand-alone Project (FWF), Period of funding: 10/2023 - 09/2026
• P 34853: Geometric analysis of biwave maps
  Stand-alone Project (FWF), Period of funding: 04/2022 - 07/2026
• Promotion Award of the City of Vienna 2020
• P 30749: Geometric Variational Problems from String Theory
  Stand-alone Project (FWF), Period of funding: 10/2017 - 03/2021
• I1671-N26: Transformations and Singularities
  Member of the joint Project between Austria (FWF) and Japan (JSPS),
  Period of funding 07/2014 - 03/2018

Activities

Save the date: There will be a workshop on PDEs and next autumn, further details will be announced soon. A preliminary website can be found here:

• PDEs and Conformal Geometry 2027 in Rostock

There will be a Differential Geometry Workshop in September 2026 at the University of Rostock, more information can be found here:

• Differential Geometry Workshop 2026 in Rostock

In the past I have been involved in the organization of the following workshops:

• Differential Geometry Workshop 2025 in Münster
• Minisymposium on Higher Order Variational Problems in Analysis and Geometry at the Annual 2025 ÖMG-DMV Meeting in Linz.
• Differential Geometry Workshop 2024 in Brest
• Differential Geometry Workshop 2023 in Iasi
• Differential Geometry Workshop 2022 in Vienna
• Online Workshop on Differential Geometry 2021
• Online Workshop on Differential Geometry 2020

Invited talks

Upcoming talks

Past talks

A list of talks that I have given can be found here.

Teaching

WS 2026

• 11290 Differentialgeometrie
• 11012 Funktionalanalysis

A list of courses that I have taught in the past can be found here.