AF I am a philosophy professor at Technical University Darmstadt with a strong interdisciplinary profile. I hold a master’s degree from Technical University Chemnitz with a major in philosophy and minors in both general and comparative literature and sociology. In 2013, I completed my PhD at Justus Liebig University Giessen with a dissertation on „Metaphorology of Networks“ (published in 2015) where I introduce a theory of key cultural metaphors. In recognition of its achievement, this work was honored with the Dr.-Herbert-Stolzenberg Award of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) in 2013.
As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the DFG Research Training Group „Topology of Technology“, I delved into research on the philosophical and biopolitical implications of cooling technologies, starting in 2013. Initiated through a collaborative effort with Stefan Höhne, I further deepened my exploration of cryogenic cultures during a research stay at the University of Sydney as visiting fellow of the Biopolitics of Science Network in 2015. The DFG scholarship also afforded me the opportunity to discuss philosophical issues related to cooling technologies with fellow postdoc Suzana Alpsancar and conference speaker Bronwyn Parry. It has since remained a central topic of our ongoing scholarly endeavors.
During my time at the Technical University of Darmstadt, I also had the pleasure of connecting with Chris Biemann, whose work in language technology resonated deeply with my interests in the philosophy of language, metaphor theory, and the history of concepts. Working closely with his research group since 2013, I contributed to the development of new tools and methods for a digital history of concepts. This collaboration led to the launch of the web application „Sense Clustering over Time“ (SCoT). Now systematically used in the research of Cryocultures, SCoT has been adopted in the Leibniz Cooperative Excellence program funded research project on “The 20th Century in Basic Concepts. A Dictionary of Historical Semantics in Germany” starting in 2022.
Before my appointment as a Professor of Philosophy and Principal Investigator of the ERC Synergy Grants on Cryocultures in 2024, I was a lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at TU Darmstadt, starting in 2015. From 2020 to 2021, I held the role of Deputy Professor of Theoretical Philosophy. From 2022 to 2024, I was an Associate Researcher at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. Since 2017, I am also co-editor of the Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie.