I am an interdisciplinary researcher of media, technology, and democracy. Growing up in pre-unification East Germany – where democratic governance and open public debate were tightly constrained – was formative for my interest in how such practices emerge and endure. As a student, I spent several years in competitive debating, participating in national and international tournaments – an experience that reinforced my appreciation for principled disagreement and the norms that sustain public discourse.
I approach my work with the conviction that complex societal challenges require collaboration across disciplines rather than intellectual silos. This orientation has led me to help establish initiatives such as the Economics of Media Bias Network and the Data Methods Initiative, which bring together scholars from different methodological and disciplinary traditions to address shared questions of societal relevance.
In leadership and mentoring, I emphasize clarity of expectations, transparent decision-making, and shared accountability. My goal is to help individuals develop their strengths while building teams with complementary expertise around common objectives. In my teaching, I translate this orientation into practice by designing assignments that reward independent reasoning, structuring group work to encourage exchange across backgrounds, and treating emerging technologies such as AI not as shortcuts but as contexts that require judgment and responsibility. Humor is an integral part of that approach.
Before turning to academic work on media, technology, and democracy, there was a decade of extracurricular noise in a punk rock band – distorted guitars, late-night songwriting, and permanent ink included. Some of that energy still finds its way into the classroom.