Professional Experience

12/2025 – Present

Professor for Natural Language Processing and Large Language Models, Technical University of Cologne

  • Research Focus: Extraction of structured data from documents and text simplification.
  • Teaching: Courses on NLP, LLMs, and related topics in Data Science.

05/2019 – 11/2025 Machine Learning Engineer & NLP Expert, how.fm, Cologne

  • Instructional Design Assistant (IDA): Process using multiple LLM calls to create high-quality learning courses from customer documents.
  • Automatic creation of multiple-choice quizzes using LLMs.
  • Evaluation and automatic improvement of machine translations.
  • Instruction Feedback: Structured feedback on written instructions.
  • Extraction of instruction texts from customer documents.
  • HowBERT: A model to recognize actions and their relationships in texts.
  • Machine Learning Operations & Management:
    • Annotation process
    • Training and evaluation of models
    • Deployment of models
    • Monitoring of models and LLM calls
  • Supervision of student employees.

08/2017 – 05/2019
Machine Learning Engineer & NLP Expert, fedger.io, Cologne

  • Computer Vision on restaurant menus to extract items.
  • Data analysis in Python.

Teaching Experience

04/2023 – 07/2024
Lecturer, Technical University of Cologne
Courses: Data & Information Science Project Seminars

11/2020 – 01/2022
Volunteer Lecturer, University of Cologne
Courses: Mathematics for Refugees

04/2018 – 02/2019
Lecturer, Technical University of Cologne
Courses: Mathematics for Engineers

10/2013 – 05/2017
Teaching Assistant (Research Assistant), University of Osnabrück
Courses: Seminar on Mathematics, Mathematics for Practitioners, Linear Algebra

10/2008 – 10/2013
Tutor (Student Assistant), Technical University of Berlin
Courses: Computer-Oriented Mathematics, Linear Algebra, Analysis

Education

10/2013 – 08/2017
Ph.D. in Mathematics, University of Osnabrück
Associated Member of the DFG Graduate School, Grade: Magna cum laude
Thesis: Topics in Combinatorial Algebra – Algorithms & Computations
Supervisors: Winfried Bruns & Martina Juhnke-Kubitzke

04/2011 – 10/2013
M.Sc. in Mathematics, Technical University of Berlin
Grade: 1.2
Thesis: Computation of Polyhedral Divisors
Supervisor: Klaus Altmann

10/2007 – 04/2011
B.Sc. in Mathematics, Technical University of Berlin
Grade: 1.2
Thesis: Using Sperner’s Lemma for Dissections into Equal-Area Triangles
Supervisor: Günter M. Ziegler

Skills

  • NLP & LLMs: HuggingFace Transformers, SpaCy, Langfuse, LangChain, NLTK, AllenNLP
  • Machine Learning: Scikit Learn, Torch, Keras, Numpy
  • Deployment: Sagemaker, AWS Cloud Management, Flask, Docker, Git
  • Data Science: Pandas, SQL, BigQuery, Plotly, Matplotlib
  • Programming Languages: Python, TypeScript, C++ (boost, OpenMP), Java, LaTeX
  • Management: Agile project management, supervision of student employees, organization of workshops and conferences

Research Interests

  • Implementation & management of applications with multiple LLMs and agents
  • Extraction of (structured) information from documents through Document Layout Analysis and multimodal LLMs
  • Text simplification: Metrics and models for assessing text complexity and simplifying texts using LLMs

Grants & Scholarships

10/2023 – 07/2024
Google Cloud Credits via the Google Education Program, for seminars at the Technical University of Cologne, Amount: $1450

08/2018 – 01/2021
Innovation Assistant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs NRW, how.fm, Cologne, Amount: €45000

10/2015 – 04/2016
DAAD Research Scholarship, San Francisco State University, Amount: €10000

10/2009 – 06/2010
Erasmus Scholarship, University of Durham (UK)

Publications

  • The Subdivision of Large Simplicial Cones in Normaliz, (with Winfried Bruns & Christof Söger), arXiv:1605.07440, Mathematical Software – ICMS 2016
  • The Stanley Depth in the Upper Half of the Koszul Complex, (with Lukas Katthän), arXiv:1408.5727, Communications in Algebra
  • Normaliz 2013–2016, (with Winfried Bruns & Christof Söger), arXiv:1611.07965, Algorithmic and Experimental Methods in Algebra, Geometry, and Number Theory
  • The Local h-polynomial of Barycentric Subdivisions, (with Martina Juhnke-Kubitzke & Satoshi Murai), arXiv:1704.08057, Discrete & Computational Geometry

Conferences & Workshops

Organizer

  • 08/2016
    FRICO 2016, University of Osnabrück
  • 10/2015
    Combinatorial & Experimental Methods in Commutative Algebra and Related Fields, University of Osnabrück
  • 09/2015
    Algorithmic & Experimental Methods in Algebra, Geometry and Number Theory, University of Osnabrück

Presentations

  • 01/2023
    Getting Your Model to Production with AWS Sagemaker, CAIML, Cologne
  • 09/2016
    Representations of Hilbert Series in Normaliz, Algebra & Geometry Seminar, University of Genoa
  • 08/2016
    Understanding Subdivisions of Simplicial Complexes via Local h-Vectors, Conference on Combinatorial Structures in Geometry, University of Osnabrück
  • 07/2016
    The subdivision of large simplicial cones in Normaliz, ICMS 2016, Zuse Institute Berlin
  • 05/2016
    Representations of Hilbert Series in Normaliz, Normaliz Workshop, University of Osnabrück
  • 03/2016
    Understanding Subdivisions of Simplicial Complexes via Local h-Vectors, UW Combinatorics Seminar, University of Washington
  • 10/2015
    Kangaroos in Big Cones, AGC Seminar, San Francisco State University
  • 08/2015
    Kangaroos in Big Cones, FRICO 2015, University of Cologne
  • 05/2015
    Integer Programming and Normaliz, Normaliz Workshop, University of Osnabrück
  • 11/2014
    The Stanley Depth in the Upper Half of the Koszul Complex, Colloquium on Combinatorics 2014, University of Ilmenau

Memberships

  • 2024
    Founder of the Online Community rhAInland
  • 2014 – 2023
    Member of the University Pop Choir and Pop Choir Cologne, University of Osnabrück & Cologne
  • 2013 – 2017
    Trainer at University Sports, University of Osnabrück
  • 2007 – 2013
    Member of the Student Council (MatheINI), Institute of Mathematics, Technical University of Berlin
  • 2011 – 2013
    Member of the Tutor Selection Committee, Institute of Mathematics, Technical University of Berlin
  • 2009 – 2012
    Student Representative in the Appointment Committees for Algebra and Discrete Geometry, Institute of Mathematics, Technical University of Berlin
  • 2008 – 2010
    Student Representative on the Institute Council, Institute of Mathematics, Technical University of Berlin