Education

• Dissertation with Rüdiger Wehner, University of Zurich, DE (2/2007)
  
• Diploma with Antonia Kesel, Technical Biology and Biomimetics, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, DE (9/2002)
  
• Secondary Abitur, Ludwigsgymnasium Straubing, DE (6/1995)
  

Professional experience

• Freelance Biomimetics Research and Consultant
• Research fellow Advanced Concepts Team, European Space Agency, Noordwijk, NL (3/2007-2/2010)
  
• Research assistant Institute of Zoology, University of Zurich, CH (3/2003–2/2007)
  
• Technical assistant Saarland University, Saarbrücken, DE (4/2000–4/2003)
  
• Working student Biomimetics project, BMW group, DE (4/1999–9/1999)
  
• Freelance research project, DE
  
• Alternative service ISB, Diakonisches Werk, Regensburg, DE (10/1995–10/1996)
  

Qualifications

Management

• Backup Teamleader
  
• Management of international research projects
• Organisation of a strategy workshop
• Responsible manager of field research stations in Tunisia 

Languages

• German (mother tongue)
• English (fluent, written and spoken)
• Italian (good)
• Spanish (basic)
• Dutch (beginner)

IT-skills

• MatLab
• R
• DreamWeaver
• CorelDraw
• LaTeX
• WINanalyze
• IDEAS
  

Laboratory skills

• Quantitative atomic force microscopy
• Instron material testing
• kinematic analyses (high-speed video cinematography, tracking techniques)
• scanning electron microscopy
• neuroethological techniques
• basic neurophysiological techniques
  

Funding

Both my PhD- and my Diploma-thesis were third-source funded. My responsibility within these funded projects has been mainly in writing the relevant parts of the annual reports.

• Ariadna scheme Currently most of my research is funded via the Ariadna scheme of the General Studies Programme of the European Space Agency. The Ariadna funding scheme has been set up in order to involve non-space related European research laboratories in the assessment of possible future fields of activities of the European Space Agency. Contrary to commonly applied funding, the projects are set up and applied for by a member of our team. Then the study is published and research labs are invited to propose how they want to address the study together with the ESA-research fellow. Within this programme, I successfully initiated and/or participated in six different studies.
• SNF Position and research in Zurich financed by the Swiss National Foundation (to R.W.)
• VW-Stiftung Position and research in Zurich financed by the Volkswagen Foundation (to R.W.)
• SEB Travel grants (2004, 2005, 2006) by the Society of Experimental Biology
• BiroNet Travel grant by the BiroNet-Organization (2005)\
• BioKoN Position and research financed by the Biomimetics Competence Network by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMB+F) and the German Society of Aviation and Spaceflight (DLR) to A.B.K.
  
• BKM&S Position and research financed by Saarland Government (Biologsch Komponierte Materialen und Systeme) to A.B.K. (4/2000-9/2002).
  

• Tunisia (2004, 2005, 2006, field research, co-organiser and responsible organiser)
• Lab of Motion Sciences, Prof. Reinhard Blickhan, Jena (2003, kinematic studies)
• Greece (2003, field research, co-organiser)

Memberships

• Society of Experimental Biology (since 2003)
• Society for Technical Biology and Biomimetics (since 1998)

Referee

• Naturwissenschaften
• Ressources, Conservation and Recycling (Elsevier)
• Biological Letters 
• diverse conferences

Award

• Honorable mention Bionik Award 2008