Bio Sketch

I am an assistant professor in the MIT Physics Department, where I joined the faculty in 2023. My research explores how black holes form and evolve across cosmic time, studying their origins and the role they play in shaping our universe. I leverage multi-wavelength data from telescopes all around the world and in space to study how the first galaxies, black holes, and quasars emerged during an epoch known as the Cosmic Dawn of our universe.
I grew up in Germany and earned my Bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Göttingen, with a focus in neuroscience. After an internship at the European Space Agency in the Netherlands, I shifted to astrophysics and pursued a Master's degree at the University of Heidelberg. I completed my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, where I worked on two different topics, namely the high-redshift universe with Joseph Hennawi, studying the earliest quasars and supermassive black holes, and the local universe with Hans-Walter Rix, developing data-driven models of stars in our own Galaxy.
In 2019, I was awarded both the NASA Hubble Fellowship and the Pappalardo Fellowship to continue my research at MIT.