• Born in 1970 in Minden / Westphalia / Germany
  • 1994: Diplom thesis in physics on gas-surface-interactions at the University Osnabrück
  • 1997: Master in philology and history on the French literary journal Divan at the University Osnabrück
  • 1997-2001: Work at the University Tübingen’s Computing Centre in the department of Literary and Documentary Data Processing
  • 2001-2005: Co-founder and co-director of the XML service provider Saphor GmbH
  • In parallel dissertation on the tradition of alphabetic ordering from cuneiform to computers (Geordnetes Weltbild) at the Faculty of Modern Philology at the University Tübingen
  • 2005-2014: Professor for Web Services and XML Technologies at the Faculty for Computer Science and Telecommunications at the University of Applied Sciences Worms
  • Longstanding participation in international standards development and scientific communities, including roles in CEN and ISO committees and conference organisation
  • 2008-2014: On leave for a project in the Office des Publications of the European Union (central content and metadata management)
  • Since 2008 work for the Office des Publications of the European Union, since 2011 as head of sector for the Office des Publications of the European Union (central content and metadata management; long-term archive)
  • Former Head of Sector in DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (European Commission), where responsibilities included community building and strategic communication for DiscoverEU and the European Solidarity Corps; integration of DiscoverEU into Erasmus+; and management of youth portals and outreach platforms.
  • Today Head of Unit OP.D.4 – Interinstitutional Relations, Innovation, Programming and Compliance, overseeing relationships with EU institutions and Member States, support to the Management Committee, internal control and financial oversight, and corporate innovation activities.
  • Current research interests include:
    • In computer science:
      • Semantic Web, especially metadata registries, metadata modelling and handling
      • Practical AI applications
      • XML technologies, especially XML data modelling and rendering of XML data
      • Application of information technology in the humanities (eHumanities / Digital Humanities)
    • In the humanities: writing and its theory (grammatology)