1994 PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Physics, Technical University of Munich
2002 Habilitation, Venia Legendi for Physics, Georg August University of Göttingen
1998-2003 Head of the Theoretical Molecular Biophysics Group at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen
2003 Associate Professor for Biomolecular Sciences at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland
Since 2003 Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen and Head of the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Department
Since 2005  Honorary Professor for Physics at the University of Göttingen