As a kid, I programmed with the C64 when I was seven years old. In the 90s I enjoyed LAN parties with friends. Until today I am regularly at the GNU/Linux/*BSD session and if it can be arranged also at the Chaos Communication Congress.

As a professor, my goal is to establish a nation-wide and internationally visible Big Data research with AI application relevance, which is closely connected and cooperates with the other research and teaching activities at the Faculty EMI of OTH Amberg-Weiden. I also want to ensure that students in the AI degree programs go through a unique curriculum that makes them attractive candidates for industry and academia.

Freelance, I am an IT consultant, software engineer, and data architect.

Prior to that, I spent about 10 years in industry working extensively on distributed big data management and processing. In industry, I have been involved in many large and small projects. As an IAPM Certified Agile Project Manager I was responsible for quite a few of these projects.

All my activities in industry were characterized by a focus on database systems and advanced analytics. At Capgemini sd&m AG, for example, I was involved in the implementation of newly designed planning processes for DaimlerChrysler AG, at that time still in the form of classic optimization methods such as forecasting based on common database systems such as IBM DB2.

My dissertation at the Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg focused on distributed data management, system integration, and process management. Besides the top grade, it was honored by a nomination for the GI Dissertation Award by FAU. After my doctorate, I continued to give a master's lecture at FAU in the winter semester as an adjunct professor with great pleasure. At the time of my appointment, I already looked back on thirteen years of experience in university teaching. I twice received an award for the best course in the category "Exercises/GOP subject Bachelor of Science and undergraduate diploma" from the technical faculty at FAU.

After my doctorate, I worked at EXASOL AG, the only German database vendor besides SAP recognized by international analysts such as Gartner and Forrester. Their massively scalable database system is the engine for many applications in the field of advanced analytics and machine learning. As a consultant and solutions engineer, I was responsible for the entire spectrum of data integration, data aggregation, reporting and machine learning on very large data volumes in various customer acquisition and proof-of-concept projects.

At Teambank AG, I modernized the BI landscape by leading two major strategic projects. The efforts included data lake technologies from the Hadoop ecosystem for data science use cases.

With the subsequent move to Quanos (formerly SCHEMA), I put my focus back into the core area of computer science. There, as a software architect in Team Server, I was responsible for, among other things, the in-house graph database at the heart of the content management system called SCHEMA ST4. In addition, I was given the task of founding and operationally managing the department-wide architecture team, with the goal of transitioning to a cloud-based architecture for ST4.

In our time, innovative techniques for mass data management and analysis are newly emerging and this data serves as raw material for artificial intelligence. I look forward to actively shaping this development.