I never expected to end up in academia. I heavily disliked secondary school, had to repeat two years and barely finished the Abitur (German A levels) with underwhelming grades. I never wanted to do anything similar again. I applied for apprenticeships, but my grades didn’t convince anyone to take a chance on me. So I ended up doing a scholarly apprenticeship, only because I knew it would take me only one year. I became a “certified commercial foreign language correspondent in English with focus on engineering and second language Italian”, and I had a good time doing it! But then I couldn’t find a job and ended up doing mind-numbingly stupid temp work. So, trying to figure out how to escape these bleak future prospects, I remembered both enjoying IBM Basic programming as an elective in 7th grade and tutoring math. I ended up applying for Media Informatics (Computing Science with focus on Human Computer Interaction (HCI)) at our local university (Ulm) and got in! I was heavily struggling with my mental health at the start of my studies, but could get help from the university and after taking a break to get better, I restarted my studies and finished my BSc (with grades just good enough to go on studying) and then my MSc, which was research focused and during which I went to Italy as an exchange student (and loved it!!). I loved doing research in HCI (which was also reflected in my grades) and decided that this was what I wanted to do moving forward, ideally outside of Germany. So I ended up in Scotland, in friendly Glasgow, doing research in HCI, first as a PhD student (one of the best times of my life!) and then as a postdoc. And here I still am.
What was your first career aspiration as a child?
As a child I wanted to become an explorer. Indiana Jones style, I guess. The idea still appeals and I guess as a researcher I am as close as I’m ever going to get to it. I also had a phase in which I wanted to become a teacher. If I stay in academia and become a lecturer, even that could become a reality.
What makes you happy?
Seeing beautiful places, natural or man-made, though for the later I prefer old structures, something that opens up ideas of what life was like in the past. For nature, that can be anything from rough cliffs and mountains, to beaches with the ocean rolling in to forests. It also can be calm or more dramatic: I enjoy seeing a blue sky over the mountains, but also love watching a storm unfold.