Thomas Henning has always been interested in fundamental physical and chemical processes. As a school student he established his own chemical laboratory and later became interested in non-linear dynamics. Today Henning is working on understanding how stars and planets form. He is hunting for exoplanets with a variety of methods from radial velocity searches to transit observations and direct imaging. Henning is combining infrared observations at high spatial resolution with large-scale numerical simulations and dedicated laboratory experiments.

Thomas is leading the MPIA Planet and Star Formation Department and is a Professor at the University of Heidelberg and Jena. Henning established the Heidelberg Origins of Life Initiative (HIFOL) and is a Co-I of major instrumentation projects such as MIRI for the James Webb Space Telescope.