Science
My main scientific interests are the formation
and evolution of stars and star clusters, as well as the formation and evolution of galaxies - and the connection between these two, today and in the early universe.
I am a founding member of the MASSIV collaboration, aiming at tracing the mass assembly in galaxies since the earliest times.
Since a few years, I am concentrating on studying the existence and the role of intermediate-mass black holes, and how these link the two topics above.
Our group is mostly observationally driven, but performs more and more simulations on specialised hardware.
Recently, I also became interested in Astrobiology and Exoplanets atmospheres.
I was involved in founding on the Garching Campus the
IMPRS Graduate School for Astrophysics, and the Cluster of Excellence for Fundamental Physics
Origin and Structure of the Universe.
Between January 2007 and December 2009, I chaired the ESO Astronomy Faculty (about 80 members).
More details can also be found by scanning through my
list of publications
or
list of referred papers.
Or just contact me!
Teaching
As an adjunct professor (Privatdozent) at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, I have a light teaching load.
Since 2014, I am also an affiliated Faculty at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where I will be teaching in Spring 2015.
Current lectures/classes at the LMU and UH Hilo:
* LMU Sommersemester 2014: An Introduction to Astrobiology (P4/5.0.29)
* UH Hilo Spring 2015: Life in the Universe
Past lectures/classes at the LMU:
* Wintersemester 2010/2011: Astrophysical advanced seminar (P4.0.6)
* Sommersemester 2011: An Introduction to Astrobiology (P5.0.29)
* Wintersemester 2011/2012: Astrophysical advanced seminar (P4.0.6)
* Sommersemester 2012: An Introduction to Astrobiology (P5.0.29)
PhD/Master thesis topics under my supervision:
Please feel to contact me for Master or PhD thesis subjects.
The two areas of research I supervise currently are:
* Intermediate-mass Black Holes
* (Exo-) Planet/Moons atmospheres
[Jan 2013] I am currently unlikely to accept Master or PhD students.
On the project side
Between February 2008 and July 2012, I was supporting as Project Scientist the detailed design phase (B) of the
European Extremely Large
Telescope Project, the next European giant telescope: a 1.2 billion Euro facility that promises incredible scientific breakthroughs.
On the instrumentation side
Between March 2000 and January 2008, I was active as Instrument Scientist in the
Optical Instrument department, the Adaptive Optics department, and last in
the NIR instrumentation department.
I have acted as Instrument Scientist for the following instruments:
-
VIMOS, an optical multi-object and integral-field
spectrograph
-
SINFONI, an adaptive optics
assisted near-infrared integral-field spectrograph
,
-
HAWK-I, a near-infrared wide-field imager, and
-
KMOS, a near-infrared multi-object spectrograph
based on deployable integral-field units.
I am still actively promoting integral-field spectroscopy, until recently through the
Euro3D Research Training Network.
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