Scientific Trajectory:

1996-1999 PhD, AIP Potsdam, Germany

1999-2001 PostDoc, Oxford University, UK

2001-2004 PostDoc, Swiburne University, Melbourne, Australia

2004-2009 Head of Emmy Noether Research Group, AIP Potsdam, Germany

2009-2014 RyC Researcher, UAM Madrid, Spain

2014-now  Prof. Contratado Doctor, UAM Madrid, Spain

2018-now  Adjunct Professor, University of Western Australia

My general research interest is computational cosmology, i.e. employing computer simulations of structure formation in the universe to learn about its origin and evolution. However, my interests can be sub-divided into three distinct yet connected sub-areas of near-field cosmology, alternative cosmologies, and numerical techniques. In each of these fields I have published a substantial number of peer-reviewed articles, all in Q1 journals. The total number of publications and their citations can be viewed under Point A.3.

One of the greatest achievements of my scientific activities is the foundation of the 'Mocking Astrophysics' program under whose umbrella several international workshops have been organized (i.e. Haloes going MAD, Subhaloes going Notts, Sussing Merger Trees, nIFTy Cosmology, Perth Galaxy Clusters, Cosmic CARNage, CompaCT Clusters, MultiDark Galaxies, Crystal Clear Clusters, Glenfiddling Galaxy Clusters): this program brought together - for the first time ever - all workers in the area of computational cosmology incl. semi-analytical galaxy formation modellers. Since 2010 we have written a series of (more than 25) peer-reviewed papers comparing and validating all codes currently in use by the community in the field of computational cosmology. This validation program also forms part of the Cosmological Simulations Working Group for ESA's Euclid Satellite mission.

I further made several highly sophisticated software tools for the field of computational cosmology publicly available: both the simulation code 'AMIGA' and the galaxy finder 'AHF' can be freely downloaded from my web site where 'AHF' is one of the most used codes worldwide for the non-trivial purpose of identifying gravitationally bound objects (e.g. galaxies) in cosmological simulations.

Besides of scientific research I also dedicate a substantial fraction of my time to teaching and supervision. I have taught in excess of 800 hours of classroom lectures over the past 10 years and supervise(d) 9 PhD and 8 MSc students (not to mention several BSc students each year). All my students picked up a PhD/postdoc position and pursued a career in astrophysics.