Professional Experience
- since October 2020: Director of the IAS-9 – Materials Data Science and Informatics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
- since October 2020: W3 Professor (full), Chair of Materials Data Science and Materials Informatics, Faculty of Georesources and Materials Engineering, RWTH Aachen, Germany
- 10/2020-01/2017: W2 Professor (full), Chair of Micromechanical Materials Modelling, Faculty of Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering, TU Bergakademie Freiberg (TUBAF), Germany & Dean of Study for the International Master’s Program “Computational Materials Science” at TUBAF
- 04/2012–12/2016: Senior Scientist (Akademischer Rat), Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU); permanent position since 06/2014
- 04/2012-12/2016 Deputy Head of Institute at the Institute of Materials Simulation (Prof. Zaiser), FAU & Head of the research group ’Deformation of heterogenous materials’
- 04/2011–03/2012: Group leader at IZBS (Prof.Gumbsch), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
- 02/2011–05/2011: Visiting scientist at Florida State University, Department of Scientific Computing (Prof. El-Azab), USA
- 05/2010–03/2011: Post-doctoral researcher at IZBS (Prof. Gumbsch), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
- 04/2007–04/2010: Research associate at IZBS (Prof. Gumbsch), KIT, Germany
- 01/2006–03/2007: Early stage researcher in the European Marie Curie Research Training Network SizeDepEn, at ’The University of Edinburgh’ (Prof. Zaiser), UK
- 11/2005–12/2005: Research associate at University of Karlsruhe, IZBS - Institut für Zuverlässigkeit von Bauteilen und Systemen, Germany
- 05/2005–10/2005: Research associate at Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM, Freiburg, Germany
University Education
- 05/2010: PhD viva at ’The University of Edinburgh’, UK (cooperative PhD research at KIT, Germany and The University of Edinburgh, UK). Degree: PhD
- 10/2004–05/2005: Master’s Thesis at Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM, Freiburg: “A comparative study on the use of numerical and analytical gradients in parameter identification”
- 2003–05: Master of Science studies in COMMAS (Computational Mechanics of Materials and Structures) at University of Stuttgart, Germany. Degree: MSc
- 1997–03: Studies of Civil Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, Germany. Degree: Diplom-Ingenieur (FH)
- 1994–97: Studies of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Münster, Germany. Additionally: practical and theoretical preparations for the entrance examination at the faculty of Musics, main instrument: piano.
Awards
- 2017 ERC Starting Grant “A Multiscale Dislocation Language for Data-Driven Materials Science” (MuDiLingo)
- 2016 Highlight Paper of the Year 2015 in MSMSE
- 2015 Cover Article in MSMSE, Two Highlight Papers of the Year 2014 in MSMSE
- 2014 Teaching Award, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
- 2010 Invited Feature Paper in Journal of Materials Research
- 2003 Dr. Perthel Thesis Award at the University of Applied Sciences, Köln, Germany
Activities in Scientific Panels and Advisory Boards
- since 2022: Representative of the FZJ in the council of the Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire (CECAM)
- 2019: Elected member of the Review Board of the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the subject area Computational Materials Design and Materials Simulation from the atomic to the microscopic scale
- Chairman of the DGM Technical Committee (“Fachausschuss”) Modelling, Simulation and Materials Data Science
- Chairman of the DGM working group (“Arbeitskreis”) 3D Materials Data Science
- since 2017: member of the review panel of the Swedish Research Council, SRC, in the field of “Natural and Engineering Sciences”
Further Scientific Activities
- One of the main organizers of the NFDI (National Research Data Initiative) consortium NFDI MatWerk of the German materials science community
- Organizer and lecturer of the DGM training courses Machine Learning: Foundations and material scientific applications
- Since 2019: member of the editorial board of theSpringer journal Materials Theory