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I'm an astronomer and I am currently a postdoc at The University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. This page provides an overview about myself and my research - check it out!

About me

I grew up in Munich, Germany, where I studied Physics and earned my Bachelor's degree from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in 2013. I then moved to Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg, to do my Master studies, part of which I spent as an ERASMUS fellow at Université Grenoble Alpes, France. I started astronomical research in 2015 with my Master's project supervised by Dr. Anne-Marie Lagrange at the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG), searching for giant planets around young stars using the Radial Velocity technique. From November 2016 to November 2020 I did my PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, working with Prof. Dr. Thomas Henning, Dr. Roy van Boekel and Dr. Myriam Benisty as a fellow of the International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Cosmic Physics. During my PhD, I have focused on the topic of planet formation and its observational signatures. Recently, I have joined the University of Arizona, Tucson, as a postdoctoral researcher to work with Prof. Erika Hamden and Prof. Carlos Vargas on exciting space missions such as Aspera and Eos.

Research

In my PhD Thesis, I have focused on the observations of direct and indirect traces of planet formation in protoplanetary disks at multiple wavelengths. I have used the SPHERE instrument to catch the thermal emission from planets in the near-infrared, and to map the distribution of small grains in the disks through polarimetric imaging. On the long-wavelength end, I have employed ALMA to observe the complementary distribution of large grains within the disks, and to study the disk kinematics through molecular lines. In 2018, we have detected the first bona-fide direct image of a planet forming within the gap of a disk with SPHERE, PDS 70 b. In a follow-up work, we have investigated the disk structure and kinematics of the protoplanetary system PDS 70 using ALMA. In addition, we have studied the highly structured circumbinary disk around GG Tau A at high angular resolution.