 He received his degree as diplom physicist from the Georg-August-University, Göttingen, in 1989.He stayed on to receive his physics doctorate in 1992 under Helmut Eckelmann.In the sequel, he had positions at the Max-Planck-Institut für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen, the German Aerospace Center, Göttingen, the Göttingen University, and the United Technologies Research Center (East Hartford, CT, USA) before he joined the Berlin Institute of Technology.