Welcome!
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, where I work in the Galactic Nuclei Group led by Nadine Neumayer. Previously, I obtained my PhD from Heidelberg University, working at the MPIA under the supervision of Nadine Neumayer and Tom Herbst. During my undergraduate studies, I also spent time at the European Southern Observatory in Chile and the Space Telescope Science Institute 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.