About Me

BACKGROUND

I was born in Berlin (west) during the time when there was still a wall dividing the city and Germany as a whole. I spent most of my years growing up there, however, I also lived a total of 6 years in Munich and about 3 years in Malaga (Spain). My first language is German, followed by Spanish, followed by English. I also had to learn Latin and later in life I took some classes in Japanese. I moved to the US after my PhD in computer science in 2006 for a 2-year postdoc. As fate wanted it, finishing a postdoc during the great recession in 2008 didn't leave a lot of options for jobs, especially in fundamental research. So I ended up surviving on soft money, which gave me free choice of place to work at and topics to work -- Hotel California ended up being the decision. Meanwhile I am a US citizen and have a family.

HOBBIES AND ATHLETICS

I have been fascinated with martial arts since I was a pre-teen. I have tried several disciplines but ultimately got stuck with Taekwondo. I have done it for about 25 years. Now, I am training with my daughter. I also like long-distance running and the high light so far was running the Berlin Marathon. In the summer, my favority sport is spending time under water, scuba diving. It seems I already lucked out  for the rest of my life though: I took the whale shark picture on the right. I am pretty sure I will never see a rare creature like that again and have my underwater camera with me...