I grew up in a small town in southern Germany, and my life since has moved through many places: Hamburg, Munich, Vancouver, Oxford, Boston, Chicago, Bangkok, Copenhagen, and now Rotterdam. What has stayed constant is a fascination with countries, regions, and the people who live in them, and an insatiable curiosity for languages, cultures, and histories. The places I have lived and worked are where my research questions come from: what makes, breaks, and shapes a place is, for me, both a personal and a professional question.
Boston. As an undergraduate I spent an exchange year at Harvard, where Dale Jorgenson and Michael Sandel were among my most inspiring professors, and where I also took coursework at MIT. Cambridge gave me one of my favorite jobs to date as well: teaching sailing on the Charles River as an instructor at Harvard.
Chicago. In 2024 I was a visiting PhD student at the University of Chicago, hosted by Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, where I also learned from James Robinson. The visit shaped the quantitative spatial backbone of my dissertation.
Bangkok. At the United Nations ESCAP, in the Transport Connectivity and Logistics Section, I worked on cross-national rail connectivity across the Asian continent, an early encounter with the infrastructure networks that now run through my research agenda. Living in Thailand also set a high bar for what a bowl of boat noodles should taste like.
Tehran. A research stay at the University of Tehran, collecting data on local labor market dynamics, took me to a country whose history, hospitality, and cuisine left a lasting impression.
Munich. At the ifo Institute's Center for Public Finance and Political Economy, I worked as a research assistant with Niklas Potrafke on trade networks, an early close look at the data behind global trade.
Copenhagen. My partner completed her PhD in Copenhagen, and during those years I worked from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Business School; the city became one of our homes.
Sailing. I love challenging, mainly small-boat sailing, the kind where weather and wind change on a whim and force you to change course in seconds. As an instructor at Harvard I weathered many situations in which my pupils, seemingly aiming for the river ground, had to learn quickly, but their excitement once the sail caught a good gust of wind was always worth it.
Food. I cook as enthusiastically as I eat. The map of my kitchen follows the map of my life: green curry and boat noodles from Thailand; fesenjan from my time in Tehran; the Italian cooking of my Oxford housemates; the hearty cuisine of my home region in southern Germany; and, honoring my French mother and my Copenhagen years, French cooking and the New Nordic kitchen.
Art and history. I love art of all kinds, from modern art and the turn of the last century to the old masters and ancient works, with a special enthusiasm for ancient history. I have traveled to see the ancient wonders of the world, or what remains of them, and the great towns of antiquity across North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, China, and South America.
Football, tennis, and squash keep me moving, football having been the constant since childhood.
All of it feeds back into the work: the societies, infrastructure, trade routes, cities, and migrations I have encountered firsthand are the raw material of the questions I study, and a steady source of inspiration for current and future research projects.