Ever since I was a child, technology has fascinated me. This has brought from first building websites and apps for my friends and school to then pursuing a degree in computer science (major) and mathematics (minor) in Aachen, Edinburgh and Oxford.
Since 2019, I’ve been a PhD student at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof Sir Nigel Shadbolt. My main research focus is empirically measuring the effect of data protection and privacy laws on the actual data practices of smartphone apps. Since I love writing, I’ve been pretty active with publications. In fact, this blog started off as a personal project to improve my English writing through publishing articles every two weeks.
Besides my studies and research, I’ve tried a few other hats. I’ve worked in a few businesses – mainly around data science, helped attract the first funding for an Oxford startup (Alchemist Accelerator, 2–3% acceptance rate), worked on digitisation and higher education policy as part of a German student society and digitisation interest group, worked at the European Parliament on digitisation policy, provided teaching on machine learning and the managment of IT projects at Oxford University, been trying student journalism for a short while, and did a bit of software engineering for businesses in my home town.
I’m also the creator of TrackerControl, which is a somewhat popular privacy app, available in 18 languages thanks to the help of the TrackerControl community. You can find more of my projects under ‘Projects’.
More generally, I’m interested in how we can live in more peace with technology. This is what I’ve been exploring in this blog for a couple of years now, and look forward to hearing your thoughts. My contact details are below.