Education

Postdoctoral scholar, since October 2006, Caltech
with Peter Bossaerts and John O'Doherty

Ph. D., Computation and Neural Systems, 2006, Caltech, Thesis advisors: Steve Quartz, Peter Bossaerts
Thesis title: "Neural Representations of Expected Reward and Risk during Gambling"

Visiting student, April 2001-September 2001, Caltech

Doctoral student, Electrical Engineering, October 2000-September 2001, Technical University Berlin

Dipl.-Ing. (M.S.), Electrical Engineering, July 2000, Technical University Berlin
Study Thesis: Analysis and Modelling of Coplanar Transmission Lines on MIS-substrates
Diploma Thesis: Field Optimization of a Superconducting Quadrupole Corrector Magnet for the LHC Project Using Analytical and Numerical Methods

Previous Work Experience

Technical Student, 1999-2000
Conseil Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) - Geneva, Switzerland
Project: Analytical and numerical design and optimization of superconducting corrector magnets for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project

Teaching Assistant, 1997-1999
Electromagnetics Department at the Technical University Berlin

Workshops

Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course, Japan, July 2005
Theme: Predictions and Decisions
Project: Kalman Filters and Conditioning

Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop, Telluride, June/July 2003
Projects: Snake- and Worm-Robot, The cricket’s ears on a barn owl’s head, can it still see?, Bioethics discussion group

Summer University, Molveno, Italy, AugustSeptember 1998
Theme: Climate and Environmental Physics

Awards and Honors

Bechtel Fellowship, 2001-2002
Klee Award, 2001
Erwin Stephan Award, 2001
German National Merit Foundation Scholarship, 1997-2000

Other Activities

Organizing committee of the 11th Annual Meeting of the German National Merit Foundation, Oct 11-13, 2002, Pasadena, California