1991 Diploma in physics from University of Technology Dresden
1992-1996 Ph.D. on physics of superconducting single-electronics devices at University of Karlsruhe, thesis supervisor Gerd Schoen
1996-1998 Postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
1998-2001 Postdoc at the University of Catania, Italy
2001-2004 Research associate at the University of Regensburg (Habilitation 2003)
Heisenberg fellowship of German Research Foundation awarded 12/2003
2004-2009 Heisenberg fellow at the University of Catania (-> 2006), and at the University of Regensburg
from 6/2009 Ikerbasque Professor at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain