PERSONAL

I’m currently living in Berlin, Germany. I’ve been here for almost 6 years now!

But first a little background…

I grew up in Irvine, California. Irvine is a medium-sized city that is most well known for the University of Califorina, Irvine, whose mascot is the anteater.

From 1984-1985, I lived with my family in Munich, Germany. Munich is famous for its Bavarian culture and the Oktoberfest.
During this time, I had the opportunity to go to a German school and learn the language.

I left Irvine in 1995 to go to college in the Bay Area, and you can read all about Stanford here!

View of Stanford's Memorial Church from the Oval

In the spring of 1998, I had the opportunity to study abroad at the Stanford center in Berlin. I remained in Germany during the summer of 1998, as an intern in the University Clinics in Würzburg, Germany. I graduated from Stanford in 1999 with a major (Bachelor of Science) in chemistry and a minor in German.

In the autumn of 1999, I returned to Berlin with a scholarship from the DAAD and began researching NMR in the group of Prof. Limbach at the Freie Universität Berlin. During this time, I also became very interested in computational chemistry and wanted to pursue a master’s degree. I thus entered the Bilingual Master Program of Chemistry in the autumn of 2000, and I completed my master thesis in the group of Prof. Manz in January 2002. At the end of January 2002, I began my PhD thesis.

In my free time, I enjoy spending time outdoors and travelling to new places. So far I’ve been able to participate in three marathons, including the Big Sur International Marathon (1997) and the Berlin Marathon (2002, 2003).

Views from the beautiful course of the Big Sur International Marathon in California

Participants of Berlin Marathon, 2003, shortly after 9:00 start