Dr. Karl H. Schoenbach Emeritus Professor and Eminent Scholar Dr.rer.nat., Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany. Nonthermal plasmas in gases and liquids, pulsed electric field effects on biological cells and tissues.

Karl H. Schoenbach received his Dr.rer.nat. degree in physics in 1970 from the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (THD), Germany.  From 1970 to 1978, he worked at the THD in the area of high pressure gas discharge physics and on the dense plasma focus. From 1979 to 1985, Karl Schoenbach held a faculty position at Texas Tech University, where he was involved in research on fast opening switches. In 1985, he joined the faculty at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, VA, where he now holds the Batten Endowed Chair in Bioelectric Engineering. Until 1993, Karl Schoenbach was active in research on photoconductive, solid state switches, and since then he has concentrated his research efforts on high pressure microdischarges, electrical discharges in liquids, and on environmental and medical applications of pulse power and plasma technology. He was elected Fellow of the IEEE in 1994 for "contributions to the research and development of very-high-power electronic devices." Karl Schoenbach has chaired a number of workshops and conferences, among them, the 1991 IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science, and the first International Symposium on "Nonthermal Medical/Biological Treatments Using Electromagnetic Fields and Ionized Gases" (ElectroMed) in 1999. For the past 12 years, he has added a touch of cell-biology - pulsed electric field effects on biological cells and tissue - to his favorite research topics of pulsed power and plasma science. Karl Schoenbach is the director of the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics at ODU, an interdisciplinary research center established in 2002. At the center, he works with pulsed power and plasma scientists, as well as with biologists and biophysicists, to connect plasma science, pulsed power science and technology and cell-biology in a new field of research: "bioelectrics."