Originally from Salzburg, Austria, I got my first medical experience as EMT in the Austrian Red Cross. Prehospital emergency medicine and trauma care was my first love and probably was the main reason I wanted to become an anesthesiologist. Coming from a military family (my dad was “Mister Orienteering” in the Austrian Army), I proudly served in the Army (Reserves), first trained as a medical logistics officer then switched to a career as a tank officer until the medical branch got a hold of me and I switched careers again, becoming a battalion and brigade surgeon before being assigned to the Ministry of Defense. I got my MD from the University of Innsbruck and then went to Vienna to obtain my training in anesthesiology and critical care at the AKH Wien – an incredible department that was among the leading academic anesthesia departments in Europe with very strong ties to the US. From 2000-2002 I worked as a research fellow studying anesthetic mechanism in Mike Crowder’s lab at WashU – an experience that, in hindsight, really changed my career and made me want to practice as physician-scientist in the US. After completing my training in Austria, I returned to WashU in 2005 and had wonderful 13 years in this great institution until in joined the University of Chicago in 2018. Clinically I enjoy working in trauma anesthesia and I love interdisciplinary biomedical research and the "joy of discovery". Currently we are working on:# Exploring nitrous oxide as treatment for treatment-resistant major depression# Cardiac outcomes after non-cardiac surgery (special interest in beta-blockers)# Perioperative (Pharmaco-)genomicsBesides medicine and science, I have a never-ending fascination with ancient history and in a different life I might have become an archaeologist.