Biography

Curriculum Vitae
 

Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, I remember an early fascination for music, sports and science. Hence, I studied physics at the University of Leipzig, Germany. I minored in chemistry and mathematics and focused on theoretical physics. I gained my first research experience in statistical mechanics in the group of Ulrich Behn in Leipzig. Then I went on to study evolutionary game theory, evolutionary dynamics, and population genetics. I did this during my PhD project in the group of Arne Traulsen at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (MPI) in Germany. I received my PhD from University of Kiel, Germany in 2011, and worked as a research assistant at the MPI until 2012. From 2013-2017, I have been a research fellow at Harvard University, School of Public Health. I work at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics of Harvard (PED). Since early 2017 I have been a member of the Department of Integrated mathematical Oncology (IMO) at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. 

At DFCI I was interested in mathematical descriptions of the somatic evolutionary process of cancer, as well as evolution and ecology. Together with Franziska Michor, Kornelia Polyak and Arndriy Marusyk I have worked on the evolution of clonal diversity in breast cancer. I have also been interested in disease management and epidemiology of multiple myeloma. We seek to improve treatment strategies and clinical care in cancers and hematopoietic diseases using data driven mathematical modeling. To this end we combine human population level and cellular/molecular level descriptions of healthy tissues and disease.

At PED I have worked with Martin Nowak on open question in evolutionary game theory. We combine approaches from Darwinian evolution and from the theory of strategic decision making. Our goal is to understand the dynamics of strategic behavior (cultural evolution) in structured populations.

At IMO, our work focuses on the evolutionary dynamics of lymphoma (Multiple Myeloma) and selective processes in the bone marrow niche, as well as on general models of cancer evolution and anti-cancer treatment. We develop statistcial and mathematical models in close collaboration with experimental and clinical cancer reserachers.