Career Profile

In my career as scientist I did not only learn to effectively increase my knowledge but also how to share it. Due to my specialized field I could also acquire practical experience in programming and administration of workstations and servers. The skills I obtained during my PhD studies are also useful in other areas besides chemistry:

  • (Big) Data Science: Computational chemistry demands (automatized) analysis and evaluation of big data sets.
  • Market research: Most methods in computational chemistry require extensive knowledge about their area of application, (dis-)advantages and future progress/updates.
  • Quality management: Each calculation yields a result - but not every result is reasonable. Therefore, knowing how to adjust each method to optimize calculation time or the quality of the results is permanently necessary.
  • Project management: The only resource a theoretician depends on is time. Through effective time management I was able to work on many projects with experimentalists (Organic, Physical, Pharmaceutical and Marine Chemistry). Additionally, I issued and supervised subprojects as Bachelor’s theses.

Experiences

Project Scientist

since 2013
Institute for Physical Chemistry // Collaborative Research Centre 677, CAU Kiel

  • Research topic: Full-dimensional photodynamics simulations
  • Development of programs for semi-automized evaluation of big data sets and (global) parameter optimization
  • Acquisition, coordination and completion of projects in related scientific fields
  • Central organization for exercises for Mathematics for Chemists and Computational Chemistry
  • Responsible lead of practical courses in Physical Chemistry for biology and pharmacy students & programming course for M.Sc. students
  • Organization and execution of e-learning for Physical Chemistry classes
  • Personell responsibility (student assistants; task allocation & supervision)
  • Supervision and evaluation of Bachelor’s theses and research practical courses
  • Providing training courses for the introduction to Computational Chemistry for members of the CRC 677 and Geomar-Biotech
  • Workflow documentation
  • Administration (hard- and software) of workstations and servers
  • Presenting my research results at (international) conferences
  • Scientific high-performance computing Used QC programs: Mopac, Molcas, Orca, Gaussian, Turbomole, Columbus, NewtonX, Tinker

Student Assistant

2010 - 2013
Institute for Physical Chemistry, CAU Kiel

  • Correcting tests and excercises in Fundamentals of Physical Chemistry
  • Leading an excercise group in Mathematics for Chemists

Projects

I am currently involved in projects dealing with the calculation of CD spectra for chiral macrocycles (Organic Chemistry), temperature-dependant excited state dynamics of adenine and a novel driged diazocine derivative.

The following projects are already published:

Full-Dimensional Photodynamics of Bistable Proton Transfer Switches (2020) - Photodynamics of a larger ESIPT switch with two proton-accepting sites.
Simulations of optically switchable molecular machines for particle transport (2018) - Update of the paper from 2012 with contents of my supervised Bachelor’s theses.
Full-Dimensional Excited-State Intramolecular Proton Transfer Dynamics of Salicylic Acid (2017) - First-ever of the dynamics of salicylic acid after photo-excitation.
Simulating a Molecular Machine in Action (2012) - QM/MM dynamics simulation of a light-driven molecular machine.

IT Skills

Perl (Scripting language)

Python

Compiler languages (C++, Fortran)

Web Utilities (HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript)

Server Utilities (Torque/Slurm, Apache)

Linux (Workstation/Server)

Windows (Workstation)

Latex

Microsoft Office/LibreOffice/OnlyOffice