In the role of leading the Structural Mechanics Department of the engineering consulting and method development company Merkle CAE Solutions GmbH, I am responsible for a team of about 10 engineers. My work comprises everything from the regular contact to costumers over project management. In addition, I take care on the quality of running projects and act as the senior adviser for my team.We are specialists consultants in the our core domains of plant engineering, rail engineering and automotive.

The project is performed within the vibration laboratory of ULB, which consists of an experienced team of mechanical and civil engineers. The main aim is to develop a fully automatic data-based structural health monitoring system based on the vibration data mined from embedded fibre optic and piezo electrical sensors. I am responsible for the development of efficient numerical methods for the simulation of vibration of structures under random excitation. More over advanced damage models are applied to simulate damage progress in structures. Furthermore, I write and review research papers for recognized international journals. In addition, I support the PhD students in my research group and maintain actively research activities with other universities. The acquisition of new contacts to companies and universities is also one major part of my work. I participate also actively in the acquisition of new industrial-oriented research projects.

During my time as a research assistance at the Bauhaus University Weimar at the Institute of Structural Mechanics, I became familiar with the dynamics of railway bridges, damage detection algorithms, and the preparation and execution of vibration tests, as well as the subsequent analysis, such as, sensitivity analysis, experimental modal analysis, and stochastic model updating. Of course, the publishing of research results in recognized international journals and the presentation of the research work at international conference was very important. The main research activities have been performed within the European projects DETAILS and FADLESS. All innovative research results were summarized to publish my PhD Thesis with the topic: "Vibration-based model updating: Reduction and quantification of uncertainties". Moreover, I gave lectures for and supervised Bachelor and Master students. I also conducted several industry-oriented research projects with partners, like BMW and DB.

I was jointly responsible for managing the interdisciplinary work package "Assessment and life extension of existing structures and industrial plants" within the European project "SAFERELNET - Safety and Reliability of Industrial Products, Systems and Structures". This included the organization and coordination of research activities of more than 30 European researchers and the preparation of three reports related to state-of-the-art, future research needs, and own research activities. As a member of the liaison committee, I was also jointly responsible for leading the project that includes the approvement of cost statements, the defense of the project towards the European Commission, some strategical reorientations of certain research activities, and the preparation of the annual project meeting. The partners of SAFERELNET were from academia and industry covering all fields of engineering, such as civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering.

As a freelancer I got the opportunity to work at the company Dynardo GmbH - a software and engineering consulting company in the field of automobile industry, civil engineering, and consumer goods. In my function as software developer, I worked on the development of fast time integrations of very large finite element models to simulate very efficiently drop tests, which was demanded by an internationally known company to optimize their products. The numerical methods were implemented into a software package based on the programming language C/C++.