I’m from Oberroßbach, Germany. After graduating from Konrad-Adenauer Gymnasium in Westerburg, I joined the German government program “weltwärts” from May 2013 to February 2014. I worked with Children’s Hope Home in Gathiga, Kenya, focusing on increasing private funding for the organization and providing afternoon activities, including German lessons, for children from low-income families with a history of homelessness and drug abuse.
While in Kenya, I was nominated by my former high school for the Studienstiftung scholarship, which supports “students whose talent and personality lead us to expect exceptional performance in the service of the general public“. I joined Studienstiftung in November 2014, and this scholarship largely funded my studies until I completed my master’s degree.
I obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communication Science with a Political Science minor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. My honours thesis was titled News reception online: The bursting filter bubble? – An empirical comparison of online search results of users with differing political opinions with the case of news.google.de [Original title: Nachrichtenrezeption im Internet: Die geplatzte Filterblase? – Ein empirischer Vergleich der Suchergebnisse von Nutzern unterschiedlicher politischer Einstellungen am Fallbeispiel von news.google.de]. The large N study involved a range of quantitative methods. My supervisor at the time was Dr. Christina Viehmann (née Köhler).
During my bachelor’s, I studied at Haifa University, Israel, for a year (July 2015-September 2016) in a self-organized study-abroad program, specializing in Middle East and North African politics and media. My thesis for the Peace and Conflict Honours Seminar analyzed aerial bombing as a coercive tool, especially its role in Milosevic’s surrender during the Kosovo War and its relevance to ongoing conflicts.
In 2014, I founded the election observatory and data aggregator Europe Elects, which was incorporated in 2019. It provides election data free of charge for the wider public and commercial clients. In mid-2019, POLITICO reported that Europe Elects was the ninth-most followed media among Members of the European Parliament. Partners include The Financial Times, Georgia State University, and DDHQ.
In January 2020, I graduated – receiving the Governor’s Gold Medal for my thesis research on trade union organizing in Uganda – with an M.A. in International Development Studies (later renamed to Global Development Studies) from Saint Mary’s University in K’jipuktuk—Halifax, Canada. The thesis involved intensive field research, interviewing workers, union leaders, and experts in Kampala and Jinja, relying on a variety of qualitative research methods. My supervisor at the time was Dr. Gavin Fridell.
In the process of acquiring Canadian citizenship, I worked for IBM as a project manager between February 2020 and November 2021.
Since September 2021, I am a Political Science Ph.D. student at Dalhousie University in K’jipuktuk—Halifax, Canada, focusing on party financing, party systems and political parties. My supervisor is Dr. Scott Pruysers. In August 2022, I received the Trudeau Foundation scholarship, a “three-year leadership program designed to train Engaged Leaders, equipping outstanding doctoral candidates with the skills to translate their ideas into action, for the betterment of their communities, Canada, and the world. Scholars are selected each year and receive leadership training in the context of Brave Spaces, in addition to generous funding for their studies.” In 2023, I was part of Dalhousie’s The OpenThink Initiative program.
I completed certified language courses in Latin (high school), French (Canada), Suaheli (Iringa, Tanzania), Arabic and Hebrew (both in Israel).
I am eternally grateful to my parents, Beate and Hans-Uwe, who, both from non-academic and humble working-class backgrounds, provided me with the foundation for everything above.