About Me​

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I was born and raised in Munich, Germany. I moved to the UK to finish high school and then stayed there for a BA at Oxford and MSc at London School of Economics. Thereafter, I spent some time in China working for an environmental program in Beijing. That led to yet another Master's degree in the UK before I finally headed to Indiana to pursue my PhD in public policy under Elinor Ostrom, who became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics while I was there. (I should add that this had nothing to do with me, no matter how great my grad-student self would have claimed my research to be.) Indiana is where Eric and I met—at, where else, a grad student mixer—and where we acquired/rescued our pests (not a typo).

After years of moving around for each other’s jobs and plenty of long-distancing, we settled in Lincoln, NE for a bit while I worked as a professor for UNL (Eric having decided to leave his professor job in OK). After riding out the pandemic in Lincoln, we took stock and decided to shake things up a bit. I left academia and am now in the midst of learning the ropes to take over my family’s company (which develops and manufactures light-based devices used, among other things, to post-process 3D-printed items). We are planning a move (back) to Germany in the coming year.

In more important matters, I always use my turn signal, love Sichuan hotpot, and get great joy out of making misshapen ceramic ashtrays for unsuspecting non-smokers (in other words, I have recently taken up pottery and will talk about it).

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Spouse/Partner:   Eric French