Particle physics is the most elementary description of the world around us we know to date. While its predictions are stunningly precise and accurate, particle physics is yet known to be incomplete.

Research in particle physics is teamwork. Cooperation and exchange with colleagues makes our work exciting. I find it fascinating to witness and understand how our picture of particle physics and thus of the elementary building blocks and processes in the universe is evolving.

I am curious to see what the direct search for unknown particles (for example dark matter particles) may reveal, and whether increasingly accurate measurements of the properties of the known elementary particles and fundamental interactions will yield indirect hints to the unknown.

In particular, I am interested in the study of the properties of the Higgs boson, the W boson, and the top quark, as well as their interplay within models of particle physics.

To measure the couplings of top quarks and the properties of W bosons at the LHC I plan studies for the development of novel measurement techniques. Additional information on these projects will be available here in the future. Please contact me if you are looking for a (B.Sc. or M.Ed.) thesis topic and are interested in finding out more about these projects.

Study of the Higgs boson with the ATLAS experiment:

• For the study of the Higgs boson with the ATLAS experiment the ETAP working group at Mainz University has specialized in the analysis of events in which a Higgs boson decays into two W bosons which in turn subsequently decay leptonically. The advantages of this decay chain are easily identifiable events and a large decay probability. The challenge is to reconstruct the properties of the Higgs boson based on events whose kinematics cannot be fully reconstructed, because the neutrino and anti-neutrino in the final state do not leave signals in the ATLAS detector.

Measurement of the top quark mass with the DØ experiment:

• Previously I worked on the measurement of the mass of the top quark with the DØ experiment at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider at Fermilab near Chicago. To make optimal use of the kinematic information provided by every individual event colleagues and I applied the so-called matrix element method, and I developed a technique to simultaneously also determine the detector responses to light- and bottom-quark jets to reduce the systematic uncertainties.

Preparations for the ATLAS and LHCb experiments:

• For the ATLAS experiment I contributed to tests of muon detectors using muons originating from cosmic rays. Previously I worked on test beam experiments for the Vertex Locator and to studies of the trigger algorithms for the LHCb experiment.

Electroweak couplings of "not quite so heavy" quarks:

• In addition, I worked on a measurement of the electroweak couplings of bottom and charm quarks in electron positron collisions with the OPAL experiment at the LEP accelerator.

I enjoy explaining particle physics and its measurement methods, precisely because of the many phenomena that contradict our everyday experience but are mandatory to obtain a complete and consistent description of nature, like for example annihilation and pair production of particles and anti-particles, particle transformation, or the fact that because of quantum interference in particle interactions it is impossible to unambiguously assign a given measured event to a single reaction process.

Particle physics for university students:

• Particle physics is a topic in my lecture courses "Structure of Matter" ("Experimentalphysik 4" in German) and "Fundamental Concepts and Applications of Physics" ("Gebietsübergreifende Konzepte und Anwendungen der Physik") in physics teacher education. Because I consider an intuitive understanding important I convey vivid images in addition to the abstract concepts of particle physics.

Particle physics for high-school students:

• Since its establishment I am engaged in the German Netzwerk Teilchenwelt ("particle physics network") outreach program for high-school students. Within the Cluster of Excellence Prisma+ at Mainz University I work on high-school programs on physics: I teach hands-on particle physics masterclasses, where high-school students identify events within the data taken by the ATLAS experiment that show the signature of a Higgs boson decay into two W bosons, and I have co-supervised high-school student projects at CERN and "Jugend Forscht" ("youth researches") projects on particle physics.