Daniela Kraft

Daniela Kraft is a Professor of Experimental Physics at the Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, part of the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) at Leiden University. She obtained her Ph.D. cum laude from Utrecht University and completed postdoctoral research at New York University's Center for Soft Matter Research with a Rubicon grant. Her research bridges self-assembly in soft and biological matter, including colloidal particles, lipid membranes, and active systems.

Key awards include the NWO Athena Prize (2019), ERC Starting Grant, VENI/VIDI fellowships, and the Biophysical Journal Paper of the Year (2017). She has published extensively in journals like Nature Communications, ACS Nano, and Physical Review Letters, with recent work on membrane-deforming colloids, non-additive interactions, and anisotropic microswimmers.

• Research Focus: Self-organization principles in biological and synthetic systems, colloidal model systems, and non-equilibrium physics.
• Labs: Leads the Kraft Lab at Leiden University.
• Education: Ph.D. in Physics (Utrecht University), Postdoc in Soft Matter Physics (NYU).