Who I Am

My name is Andreas and I am from the Rhine-Main area in Germany. I studied mechanical engineering with an emphasis on materials science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) and completed my diploma studies with a thesis on the "Synthesis and structure of electrodeposited Nickel-PTFE composites coatings". The thesis work was done during a research stay at the Nanomaterials Research Group, headed by Prof. Uwe Erb at the University of Toronto, Canada. 

After my graduation, I gathered professional experience at Goodyear S.A. (Luxembourg), but started pursing a PhD at the Leibniz-Institute for Composite Materials (IVW) in Kaiserslautern, Germany, just one year later. During my time at IVW, I was focussing on thermal and mechanical properties of fibre reinforced polymers that were toughened by a new type of phase separating rubbers (block copolymers). One goal was to gain a better understanding of the underlying processes for tailoring such materials to high performance applications, e.g. CFRP-based car wheels. The thesis was titled “Morphology and Fracture of Block Copolymer and Core-Shell Rubber Particle Modified Epoxies and their Carbon Fibre Reinforced Composites” (supervised by Prof. Ulf Breuer and Prof. Klaus Friedrich).

During my PhD, and after having spent a four months research stay at the University of Sydney with Prof. Lin Ye, I got in touch with Prof. Jan Kristian Krüger, and started collaborating with him using the new technique of Temperature-modulated optical refractometry (TMOR), which is a fascinating new way to access thermo-optical properties and investigate polymer genesis, morphology and transition phenomena. 

In 2021 and 2022, when I was publishing some remaining work from my PhD time, I became aware of the WB-programme and applied for it in October 2022. My research proposal was then approved in March 2023. The project started in May 2023

For recent publications see the Publications section or Google Scholar