Education and professional employment:

- 1991 – 1996: Study of physics at the University of Tübingen and the University of California at Berkeley

- 1996: Diploma in Physics, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen

- 1996 – 1999: PhD in Astrophysics at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich

- 1999 – 2000: Postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

- 2000 – 2001: Business consultant (project management in the consumer goods industry)

- 2001 – 2003: Postdoc at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, Garching

- 2003 – 2005: Tenure-track scientific staff at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, Garching

- 2005 – 2010: Research group leader (W2, tenured) at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, Garching

- since 2010: Professor for Theoretical Astrophysics (W3), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Heidelberg University, and Group Leader Theoretical Astrophysics at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS)

- since 2011: Member of the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing at Heidelberg University

- since 2012: External scientific member of the Max-Planck Society and the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg

- since 2017: Scientific Member and Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics in Garching

Honors and awards:

- 1989 – 1996: Scholarship by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation

- 2000: Otto Hahn-Medal, Max-Planck-Society 

- 2004: Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Award of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

- 2005: International Media Award for Science and Art

- 2006: Elected into the "Eleven for Science", Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft

- 2006 – 2011: Member of the Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

- 2009: Klung-Wilhelmy-Weberbank Prize for Physics

- 2013: European Reseach Council Consolidator Grant "EXAGAL"

- 2016: Golden Spike Award of the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart

- 2016: Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

Selected memberships in boards and commissions:

- since 2006: Member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU)

- since 2011: Member of the Cosmological Simulation Working Group (CSWG) of the EUCLID satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA)

- since 2012: Member of the Research Council of the Field of Focus "Structure and pattern formation in the material world" of Heidelberg University 

- since 2012: Member of the Board of the Collaborative Research Centre 881 of the DFG, "The Milky Way System"

- since 2013: Member of the scientific advisory board of the Gauß-Center for Supercomputing (GCS)

- since 2015: Scientific Advisory Board, Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, UK