Oliver Gressel did his graduate studies at the MHD group of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (AIP), and in 2009 received his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Potsdam, Germany. His doctoral thesis was concerned with realistic simulations of the large-scale galactic dynamo emerging from supernova-driven turbulence and was awarded the Spe­cial prize in Astrophysics for tal­ented re­searchers in Berlin and Bran­den­burg in 2010.

Before he joined Nordita in 2012, Oliver worked as a post-doctoral research assistant at Queen Mary, University of London, where he applied his knowledge in magnetic instabilities and turbulence to the field of planet formation theory. By developing layered models of protoplanetary accretion discs with partial ionisation due to external radiation, he demonstrated that a quiescent, magnetically-decoupled midplane layer can serve as a shelter for growing planetesimals and protoplanets.

As part of Axel Brandenburg's research group, Oliver's main interests lie in turbulent dynamo theory with applications to the interstellar medium and galactic magnetic fields, as well as accretion disc dynamos. The latter class of objects is of particular interest to him as it comprises a major challenge for the mean-field modelling of large-scale field evolution. This is because of the important back-reaction of magnetic fluctuations via the Lorentz force, which (in the presence of magnetic instabilities) remains poorly understood. Deploying pioneering methods previously developed at Nordita, he aims to advance the understanding of these systems.