The development, construction, commissioning and operation of detectors for particle-physics experiments has been at the core of my research interests from a very early stage. I studied physics studies at the University of Bonn and did my Diplomarbeit (Master Thesis) at Forschungszentrum Jülich on R&D for a novel type of wire-based tracking detector. For my PhD thesis, I moved to CERN, where I contributed to the installlation, commissioning and ioperation of a scintillator hodoscope for the JETSET (PS202) experiment at the Low-Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) and did an analysis of proton-antiproton annihilations to two phi mesons. During a first PostDoc at CEA Saclay (close to Paris), I contributed to the construction and commissioning of the tracking detectors for the NA48 experiment at CERN,  and during a second PostDoc at NIKHEF (in Amsterdam), I participated in the design, construction and commissioning of
tracking detectors for the HERA-B experiment at DESY. I moved to Zurich on the first day of the third millenium and have been working here at the Physik-Institut ever since. I am a member of the LHCb experiment, where my largest contribution has been the development, construction and commissioning of the Tracker Turicensis ("Zurich Tracker"), a large silicon micro-strip detector that formed part of the main tracking system for the original LHCb detector. I have made minor contributions to the LHCb upgrades. A couple of years ago, I joined the Mu3e experiment at PSI with a small team of people contributing to the  construction, installation and commissioning of the silicon pixel vertex detector. As of autumn 2024, I am getting involved in studies for a scintillator hodoscope for the planned SHiP experiment at CERN.

I have been teaching various courses here at the Physik-Institut at UZH, at the undergraduate as well as graduate level and for physicists as well as non-physicists.  I have taught courses on data analysis techniques for physics undergraduates and experimental methods in particle physics
for master and PhD students; I have supervised lab courses for medical students and students in particle physics, including an experiment at a beam line at PSI. I have taught basic physics  for medical students, particle physics for physics undergraduates, and a course on experimental aspects of  Flavour Physics for graduate students, which formed the basis for my Habilitation,
"Experiments in Beauty". Most recently, I am teaching physics to future school teachers.