Background
Simon’s story
I grew up in a rural area in the north west of Germany. West Germany, actually, as it was called back then. International people might have heard of Hermann the German — the tribesman that vanquished the Romans in the battle of the Teutoburg Forest. To commemorate Hermann’s stopping the spread of a more developed civilization, the Germans erected a gigantic statue around where I lived. It is rather pretty.
Educationally, I first made a large tour through Germany before going abroad. I briefly studied in Marburg to become a high school teacher in physics and history, but abandoned that endeavour to get a B.Eng. in Microtechnology in Zwickau. Having been exposed to cutting-edge solar-cell research at the Fraunhofer IPMS in Dresden, I then studied Nanotechnology as an M.Sc. in Erlangen — with a memorable Erasmus term in Linköping, Sweden. Ever since, I have loved being around international people.
Coming from a working-class family, I did not even know what a university really was when I finished school, let alone what doctors do if they do not practise medicine. It was never really my plan to get anywhere specific with my studies and I certainly never considered getting a doctorate.
I almost managed to go abroad for my doctorate. In the end, I completed a super-exciting binational doctorate in Groningen and Erlangen. That allowed me to have a foot in two research groups, exposed me to many different topics and awoke my calling to become a spectroscopist. I stayed in Groningen for a first postdoc before moving to Cambridge — just in time for Brexit and a very long Covid lockdown. Great fun!
At the end of May 2023, I was appointed Juniorprofessor for Experimental Semiconductor Physics at Chemnitz University of Technology. I am also a visiting scientist in the StranksLab at the University of Cambridge.
