About

Academic Education

1998-2004

Master in Political Sciences and German Language from Heidelberg University.

In political sciences, I early on focused on international relations. Spent an exchange year at San Francisco State and Berkeley University, where I continued with international relations and Chinese studies. Learned Mandarin at Kunming Technical University in Yunnan, China - and forgot most of it again. In German Language, I specialized in discourse linguistics, which essentially consists of media analysis and use of language in political communication.

Wrote my master's thesis about the development of the human rights discourse in China between 1850 and early 2000.

Early Professional Years

2004 - 2009

Began my first job at a publishing company in Berlin with a specialization in political communications. Soon was in charge of organizing all the company's events, which quickly developed in to conferences and award galas with high-level participants from the political of Berlin, with about 500-1000 pax each.

After some years, I started with a Berlin-based PCO (professional congress organizer), which mainly organized very large international medical conferences (up to 35.000 participants). I was in charge of a smaller association for diabetes in children, organizing their business (AMC) and annual conferences (in Berlin, Ljubljana, Durban, Buenos Aires, Miami; approx 1,000 pax each). Also organized the joint ISH-ESH-DHL meeting on Hypertension 2008 in Berlin with approx. 10.000 participants. Co-developed a new conference, the World Health Summit, and organized the first edition in 2009.

Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

2010 - 2024

In 2010, I took over the position a director of the executive secretariat of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. Quite a title.

During the next 14 years, I was in charge of running the annual meetings with some 40 Nobel Laureates, 600 excellent young scientists and adiditonal guests supporters and media; together with my team. We started with 6 people, and by the end of 2023 had 17 permanent staff members. The meetings had substantially grown in size, content, and professionality.

Work included event management, communication activities, academic partner relations, IT, fundraising and fund management, HR, and much more.

Data Science

2023-2024

In 2022, I decided it was time for a change again, and after some consideration, I decided to switch fields entirely and develop my skills towards data science.

I enrolled in an ambitious remote data science program at MIT, which can be done in two to five years. In addition, I am constantly adding new knowledge via various courses and specializations. You can find all the details on the ``Skills`` and ``Certificates`` pages.

Accoriding to my timeline, the main study period will be finished in late fall 2024.