I am an Instrument Scientist in the instrumentation devision and Associate Astronomer in the science faculty of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

On the duty side I work as the project scientist for the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) which will upgrade one of the 8m telescopes of the Paranal Observatory with an adaptive secondary mirror. The facility includes the use of a sophisticated Laser launch facility that will provide 4 Laser artificial guide stars for wavefront sensing. Furthermore, I'm working on the development of a visualization tool for 3D data as they are now routinely produced by several instruments with integral-field-unit (IFU) capabilities on the VLT.

In terms of research I'm working mostly on the stellar populations and dynamics of early-type galaxies in the nearby universe. I'm a full member of the SAURON and ATLAS3D collaborations which aim to characterize the dynamics and stellar populations of nearby early-type galaxies and bulges with surveys using the integral field unit SAURON on the WHT (4.2m, La Palma, Canary Islands).

In general I'm interested in galaxy formation and evolution.