After defending my PhD thesis in July 1988 at the University of Heidelberg under the supervision of Prof. H.G. Dosch, I had several positions including scientific associate at TU Munich, a fellowship at CERN (Geneva) and research assistant again at Heidelberg Univ. In February 1996, I completed my Habilitation at the University of Heidelberg. In April 1998, I was awarded a Heisenberg fellowship by the DFG, which I occupied until October 2004. During this period I replaced two professors one at Heidelberg Univ. and the other one at LMU Munich, I spent some time as a visiting researcher at Fermilab (USA), and in July 2003 I was awarded an Apl. professorship by Heidelberg Univ. I am employed with ICREA since April 2005. My scientific work until today includes more than ninety publications which so far received more than 6,700 citations.

Research interests

The “Standard Model” of particle physics until now describes all observed phenomena in its realm to an astonishing precision. Still, theoretical prejudice exists demanding physics which goes beyond it. “Beyond Standard Model” physics might be – so far unsuccessfully – uncovered directly by its observation, or through unveiling mismatches within the present theory. For the latter approach high precision predictions are required which necessitate a sound knowledge of the Standard Model input parameters. My main work concerns precision determinations of those parameters in the strong-interaction sector of the “Standard Model”, most notably the strong coupling and the masses of “quarks”, entities which are the sub-constituents of the protons and neutrons in ordinary atomic nuclei.