Welcome!
I am an astronomy PhD student and a fellow of the International Max Planck Research School on Astronomy and Cosmic Physics at the University of Heidelberg (IMPRS). I work in the Galactic Nuclei Group (Nadine Neumayer) at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg. Previously, I obtained a bachelor's and a master's degree in physics at the University of Heidelberg. During my undergraduate studies I spent time at the European Southern Observatory in Chile and the Space Telescope Science Institue in Baltimore, USA.My research focuses on observational studies of globular clusters and the search for intermediate-mass black holes in their centers. For this, I use various telescopes and instruments to obtain high-precision proper motion measurements of the cluster's individual stars and to understand their dynamics.
Furthermore, I am interested in the development of novel astronomical instrumentation. During my PhD I participated in the developement and construction of the SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper (LVM), a novel wide-field integral field spectroscopy survey instrument, working with Tom Herbst and the LVM collaboration. This instrument recently celebrated a very succesful first light and survey operations have begun.
In October 2023, I joined the METIS project, the mid-infrared imager and spectrograph for the future Extremely Large Telescope.
For details, you may take a look at the RESEARCH section or CONTACT me directly.