Research

My interest in MR was awoken by stumbling upon a brochure of a newly established study program ‘Medical Physics’ in Düsseldorf with intriguing pictures of whole-body MRI scans and the idea of studying the advancing field of medical research. During my undergrad years, I was introduced to MR spectroscopy and quantitative imaging under supervision of Prof. Hans-Jörg Wittsack and Georg Oeltzschner at the Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the University Hospital Düsseldorf.

Luckily, I was introduced to Prof. Alfons Schnitzler who gave me an opportunity to do a PhD about metabolic imaging and spectroscopy in hepatic encephalopathy at the Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology. After finishing my PhD in 2019, I’ve started my postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, working together with Richard Edden, Georg Oeltzschner, and Peter Barker.

My research as postdoctoral fellow was focused on the detection of brain metabolites using conventional and edited magnetic resonance spectroscopy, as well as spectroscopic imaging. My particular interest is to develop and standardize methods to detect low-concentration metabolites, such as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, ascorbate, glutamine, and glutathione.

Together with Georg Oeltzschner I have worked on the development of the open-source MRS data analysis toolbox Osprey. This project is focused on the standardization of processing and quantification of MRS data, as well as investigating the performance of the underlying algorithms to better understand the modelling process. During this effort I did also develop an R-based open-source toolbox for transparent data visualization SpecVis.

Recently, I received a NIA K99 Career Development Grant focused on method the development of advanced MRS methods to investigate healthy aging. The proposed method is designed to simultaneously acquire metabolite concentrations and relaxation times, therefore, probing indicators of local biochemistry and cellular microstructure time efficiently.

When I’m not coding, I’m an outspoken podcast- and coffee-junkie. Pre-pandemic activities included visiting concerts and festivals with friends and occasional rock climbing, recently replaced with increasing passion for cooking.

CV

Download CV

This is the base Jekyll theme: jekyll