Who I am and how I got there

Growing up in the Mediterranean environment on Mallorca until the age of five my earliest childhood memories are deeply connected to the rugged limestone landscapes, arid climate and appreciative handling of water. In the remote rural area potable water came from our well, which not only raised my awareness for water but also for the fact that kids at that age don’t appreciate ice cold showers…

After listening to a talk at the University at the age of 14 I got fascinated by the field of Geoscience and the comprehensive nature of associated research methods. As an undergraduate student I was impressed by structural Geosciences and pore-space analysis. Being introduced to programming by my uncle at the age of ten I immediately got hooked by the subject of Hydrogeology and fluid dynamics at the University. Numerical modeling and model development have been part of my daily life as a scientist since.

I received my Diploma from the University of Goettingen in 2009 working on unsaturated multi-continuum modeling of karst aquifers under supervision of Prof. Sauter and Dr. Geyer. During my doctoral studies I developed Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics models at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory under supervision of Alexandre Tartakovsky and University of Goettingen. Particle-based pore space modeling approaches opened up a completely new perspective for me on discrete flow dynamics and are still one of my favorite topics to work on (besides the unavoidable increasing administrative loads). I received my Ph.D. in 2014 from the University of Goettingen, Faculty of Geosciences and am now employed as an Akademischer Rat auf Zeit (Junior Lecturer, Assistant Professor) leading the Fractured Rock Hydrogelogy group at the Department of Applied Geology, Prof. Sauter, University of Goettingen.