Short Curriculum Vitae:

2009 until present: Speaker of the Executive Board of the GeoBio-CenterLMU.

December 2008 until present: Associate Editor, BMC Evolutionary Biology.

December 2008 until present: Member of the Executive Board of the GeoBio-CenterLMU.

October 2008 until present: Professor (Chair) of Palaeontology, Department for Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München.

October 2008 until present: Director, Bavarian State Collections for Palaeontology and Geology.

April 2002 - September 2008: Juniorprofessor for Geobiology at the Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum der Universität Göttingen, Abt. Geobiologie.

2005 until present: Subject Editor Porifera for ZOOTAXA.

April 2002 until present: Honorary Research Fellow at the Queensland Centre of Biodiversity, Queensland Museum, Brisbane.

April 2000 - December 2002: Honorary Research Consultant, Department of Zoology and Entomology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane.

April 2000 - March 2002: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the ABRS at the Queensland Centre of Biodiversity, Queensland Museum, Brisbane. Title of project: Australian calcareous sponges (Porifera: Calcarea): biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef fauna, taxonomy and systematics of Australian species.

April 1998 - March 2000: Post-Doctoral fellowship of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to work at the Marine Biology Laboratory (working group of Dr. John Hooper) of the Queensland Museum in Brisbane (Australia). Title of project: 'Actuopaleontology and taxonomy of calcareous sponges (Porifera: Calcarea) from cryptic habitats of the Great Barrier Reef (Australia)'.

June 1998: The 'Inge und Werner Grüter-Preis für Wissenschaftspublizistik 1998' ('Inge und Werner Grüter-prize for Scientific Journalism'), awarded to the German coordination group of the 'International Year of the Reef 1997', of which I was a key member, for their efforts in the dissemination of scientific knowledge on coral reefs, their ecology, and their threats.

January 1998: Book prize of the Fakultät für Geowissenschaften of the Georg-August-University Göttingen for outstanding results of Ph.D. thesis and examination.

January 1998: Ph.D. (Doctor rerum naturalium) at the Fakultät für Geowissenschaften of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Title of Ph.D. thesis: 'The reef cave dwelling ultraconservative coralline demosponge Astrosclera willeyana LISTER 1900 from the Indo-Pacific. - Micromorphology, Ultrastructure, Biomineralization, Isotope Record, Taxonomy, Biogeography, Phylogeny.'

January 1997 - December 1997: Member of the German committee of the 'International Year of the Reef 1997', coordinator of the 'Red Sea ReefCheck 97'.

October 1994 - December 1996: Research scientist at the Institut und Museum für Geologie und Paläontologie of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Ph.D. project on geobiology of coralline sponges from the Great Barrier Reef (Australia).

March 1994: Diplom in Geology/Paleontology, equivalent to 'Master of Science' degree. Diplom-Thesis: 'Comparative biometry and ecomorphology of boreal and mediterranean populations of the genus Echinocardium GRAY 1855'.