Mathematics

During my last year at the Gymnasium, one of high school’s German relatives, I had to decide on what to study. I was interested in mathematics, physics, and computer science. Mathematics and physics where my favorite classes and, by then, I had been teaching myself to code for close to nine years.

Physics was quickly eliminated from my list, though I no longer remember why. That left mathematics and computer science. In my youthful naïveté, I thought that I could teach myself everything interesting computer science had to offer, and thus decided on studying mathematics. Even though the rationale was questionable, it was the right choice. On the one hand, I enjoyed studying mathematics and it came to me naturally—the latter probably causing the former. On the other hand, of course, I did not teach myself everything interesting I might have learned studying for a computer science degree. In any case, my practical software development experience was enough for me to land an interesting job right after finishing with my PhD studies.

I started to study mathematics in Ilmenau where I got my Diplom, the mostly discontinued German cousin of a Master’s degree.

Right from the start, I was looking for a way to study abroad. I thought aiming high would not hurt and applied to the University of Cambridge after my second year. My boldness payed off and I spent a year doing Part III as a member of Magdalene College. This got me a Master’s degree, even before finishing my degree at the German university.

With two degrees under my belt, I started to work towards a PhD. At first in Ilmenau, then continuing in Ulm, following my supervisor when he accepted a new position. At the end of 2012, I was done. The field of research of my doctoral thesis can be categorized as a mixture of graph theory and discrete algorithms.

I end this page with a list of mathematical publications that I coauthored. Thanks to a publication that I coauthored with Vašek Chvátal, I have Erdős number 2—the lowest I could reasonably get, given that Erdős died when I was 10.