Simona Regenspurg has been appointed adjunct professor for “Geothermal Fluids” at the Institute of Geological Sciences at the Free University of Berlin. At the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, she heads the working group of the same name within the Geoenergy Section. Regenspurg’s research focuses on, among other things, chemical reactions under elevated pressure and temperature conditions, as well as interactions between thermal water and rock, and the occurrence and extraction of critical raw materials from thermal water. She analyzes the properties of geothermal fluids to, together with her research group, develop new approaches to optimize geothermal energy extraction. Major projects she has been significantly involved in include “CRM - Getherma - Critical Raw Materials from geothermal fluids: Occurrence, Enrichment, Extraction” and “REFLECT | Redefining geothermal fluid properties at extreme conditions to optimise future geothermal energy extraction”.

The focus of Simona Regenspurg’s university teaching is on geochemical processes that occur during the geothermal utilization of deep fluids. At the Free University of Berlin, Regenspurg will also coordinate the advanced lecture “Thermal Aquifer Storage”, which is conducted jointly with colleagues from the GFZ. She intends to incorporate numerous practical examples from the GFZ’s work into her teaching. The methodological approaches used in research can also be highly instructive for students. Research and teaching will also be interlinked by offering excursions to current GFZ field work, giving students a direct insight into post-university research.

“As spokesperson for the Geoenergy Alliance Berlin Brandenburg GEB², it is very important to me that the topic of geothermal energy is broadly represented at the universities in Berlin and Brandenburg, that there are, for example, courses covering different disciplines, such as courses in the geosciences but also in engineering sciences like process engineering, at the Technical University of Berlin, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Potsdam, but also the BTU Cottbus and the Berlin University of Technology, so that we can inspire the next generation of scientists for this topic,” says Simona Regenspurg. She also intends to utilize the synergies with Geo.X, which is located at the GFZ and is strongly committed to networking within the Berlin-Brandenburg research landscape.

About the Person

Simona Regenspurg completed her diploma in Geology and Hydrogeology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1998. She received her doctorate from the University of Bayreuth in 2002. She worked as a research scientist at, among others, the Department of Chemistry and Geochemistry at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden (USA), as well as at the Department of Industrial Ecology at the Royal University of Technology in Stockholm and the EPFL in Lausanne. Since 2009, Simona Regenspurg has been conducting research at the GFZ. She completed her habilitation at the Free University of Berlin in the Department of Hydrogeology in 2016 and has been active as a private lecturer at this university ever since. In 2020, she became head of Working Group 4.3.9 Geothermal Fluids at the GFZ.