My research is driven by a single question that runs across fields: how do
collective phenomena emerge from local interactions? A network of agents
converging on a shared view, a chemical reaction settling into one of two states,
or the capacity for self-reflection that emerges from the interaction of ML
systems — in each case I want to understand how structure, order, and even
capacities like self-reflection arise from parts that individually contain none
of it.
The route here ran through several places and people. It began with a double
master’s degree: an M.Sc. at Julius Maximilian University Würzburg and a Master of
Physics at Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh. During my master’s thesis in Würzburg
(under the supervision of Haye Hinrichsen and Wolfgang Kinzel) my interest in
nonequilibrium phase transitions and the statistical physics of networked systems
first took shape.
For my PhD at TU Darmstadt I crossed into synthetic biology — as
a theoretical physicist. In the group of Barbara Drossel I learned to take complex
processes apart through minimal models, analytical methods, and numerical
simulation — the approach that still defines how I work.
I am now a postdoctoral
researcher in the group of Marc-Thorsten Hütt at Constructor University Bremen,
whose own range across disciplines gives this cross-field work the room it needs.
