About me

Summary:

I am a hard-working, self-driven graduate from a PhD program in chemistry at Colorado State University with a curious mind constantly seeking opportunities to learn and acquire new knowledge.

Currently, I am using my knowledge and my experience of neutron and X-ray diffraction to study residual stress in materials for engineering applications. For me, this is a rather new application of diffraction techniques and different to what I used to do during my previous position and also different to what I did during my PhD program.

    The research during my PhD program focused on harnessing X-ray and neutron scattering techniques to understand structure-property relationships of materials used for sustainability and energy applications. This involved, but was not limited to, studying porous materials for gas separation or hybrid perovskite materials for photovoltaic energy conversation. My work specifically emphasized understanding the short-range correlations in highly disordered systems. This was supported by structural modelling and simulations such as high-throughput Reverse Monte Carlo modelling performed on High Performance Computing systems.

    While gaining and generating knowledge is important for me, I am also interested in the general process of knowledge acquisition and retention. This includes research on metacognition, especially in the context of learning general chemistry, and putting it in the context of scientific based findings from education and cognitive psychology. Not only do I see its application in an academic field but also in a corporate environment where effective knowledge transfer is essential.  

When I am not at work or actively learning something, I spend time with my wife and/or pursue some of the below listed activities.

A list of free time activities:

Music:      Musical Instruments: Zither and Piano

Singing:    Le Grand Chœur À Cœur Joie de Grenoble, Grenoble, France  (Oct. 2022 – Present)    

Mill Lane Gospel Choir, Sevenoaks, United Kingdom (Jan. 2008 – Sep. 2008)

Choir Cantus Juvenis, Vienna, Austria (Oct. 2009 – Mar. 2010)

Sport:       Cycling, Dancing, Fencing, Hiking, Ice-Skating, Running (Nov. 2011 New York City Marathon),

Sailing, Skiing, Snowboarding                

Others:     Reading, Traveling, Baking

Professional Memberships: 

European Crystallographic Association, Neutron Scattering Society of America, International Zeolite Association, Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR)

Additional Awards:


Awarded funding for giving a poster presentation at the EuroMOF conference. 

This program seeks to develop a mentoring framework, where established Austrian scientists provide guidance, experience and knowledge to early career researchers from Austria. My program was sponsored by the Vienna University of Technology. Mentor:  Peter Hosemann, UC Berkeley

Awarded funding for giving an oral presentation at the American Conference on Neutron Scattering.