My life in a few paragraphs

I was born in 1994 in Heidelberg, Germany. In 2000, however, my family moved to Innsbruck, Austria, where I spent all of my school years. Apart from the almost obligatory Austrian activity – skiing – I developed various interests in art, dancing and singing. In particular, I was singing in a choir and had small roles in two musicals at the Tyrolean State Theatre. I did not continue to pursue singing, but I still enjoy dancing.

At age 14, I decided to invest more time in one particular passion: Mathematics. After seeing an advertisement for the Mathematical Olympiad, I quickly discovered that I really enjoy solving the kind of problems posed there. I was particularly passionate about Euclidean geometry, but was also fascinated by number theory and combinatorics. In the years 2010-2012, I successfully participated at the national competitions of the Austrian Mathematical Olympiade. In particular, this led to a qualification and participation at the Middle European Mathematical Olympiad in 2011. One year later, in 2012, I placed 5th out of all participants in the second round of the Austrian national competition. Thereby, I qualified for the 53th International Mathematical Olympiad in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where I received a bronze medal .

In 2012, I moved to Zurich to study Switzerland to study mathematics at the University of Zurich. While I mainly focussed on advancing my mathematical skills during my school years, I also had strong interest in physics, which is why I decided to choose this subject as a minor. I achieved my Bachelor's degree in 2015, and then continued with a Master in applied mathematics, with theoretical physics as area of application, at the ETH Zurich. During this time, I enrolled in several courses ("Differential Geometry", "General Relativity" and "Theoretical Cosmology") providing me with fundamental mathematical and physical knowledge for my later research work. During that time, I realized that theoretical cosmology is the right research field for me: I want to use my skills in physics, with a strong mathematical background, to help unravelling the mysteries of our Universe!

For my PhD thesis, I worked with Jaiyul Yoo on developing precise formalism to account for general relativistic effects in large-scale structure observables, in particular cosmological weak lensing and galaxy clustering. After achieving my PhD degree in 2021, I moved to the University of Geneva as a postdoctoral researcher. Here, I am a part of the cosmology group, working with associate professor Camille Bonvin. Currently, my research is mostly focused on developing model-independent tests of gravity. I am also interested in pulsar timing arrays and their synergies with other probes of our Universe.

Apart from my scientific work, I am also passionate about communicating my work to the broader public. In the past, I have given outreach talks at schools, and I have contributed to the YouTube channel Cosmic Blueshift. Feel free to contact me – I am always happy to talk about my research and foster new connections!

Click here for a formal CV.