| 1990-1996 | Studies of Biology at the Universities of Regensburg, Germany and Boulder, Colorado, USA |
| 1996 | Diploma thesis at the University of Regensburg; Supervisor: Günter Hauska |
| 1996-1999 | PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Freiburg, Germany; Supervisor: Dieter Jahn |
| 1999-2002 | Postdoc at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California at Davis, USA; Supervisor: J. Clark Lagarias |
| 2003-2005 | Group leader within the Emmy-Noether-Program (DFG) at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany |
| 2006-2014 | W2-Professor for Physiology of Microorganisms at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany |
| Since 09/2014 | W3-Professor for Microbiology at the Technical University Kaiserslautern, Germany |