Speaker Details

I grew up in Bremen, Germany, studied physics at the University of Bonn, and did my PhD thesis working on a small particle physics experiment at CERN. Working in a small but diverse team of scientists, engineers and technicians allowed me to learn the workings of an international collaboration and take part in important decision making processes at an early stage in my career.

After two post-doctoral positions in France and in the Netherlands, where I contributed to particle physics experiments at CERN and at a large national lab in Germany, I finally joined the department of physics at University of Zürich (UZH) to work on one of the four large experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The collaboration running this experiment consists of currently 1900 participants from 112 academic institutions in 28 countries. The experiment itself consists of several large detector components, each of which is led by a project leader. I was the project leader for one of these components for several years and as such was responsible for its successful development, production, deployment and operation, leading a team of physicists, engineers and technicians from academic institutions in several countries. I have been a member of the Technical Board of the experiment, which is responsible for all aspects regarding the successful construction and operation of the experiment as a whole, and of the Collaboration Board, which is responsible for strategic and financial aspects of running the collaboration.

Together with colleagues from the other three large LHC experiments, I initiated and co-organized several initiatives to support early-career scientists at CERN, such as a mentoring programme and career networking events. Besides my research activities, I contribute to teaching at UZH, recently also in collaboration with PHZH.