About me

I have a Ph.D. in physics and work as staff scientist in the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-2) of the Research Center Jülich, Germany. I am passionate to learn new things, and so I like very much the interdisciplinary aspects which are a significant part of my work.

My major research interest is using imaging and machine learning methods to study the impact of sleep, circadian variation and lifestyle on neurological disorders, and especially the role of Aquaporin-4 and the glymphatic system.

Sleep and circadian rhythms are fundamental in biological organisms, and growing evidence indicates that they are associated with several major neurodegenerative disorders. Functional and structural neuroimaging with positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows to study the effect of sleep on the brain as well as to image biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases. Artificial intelligence and machine learning with open-science multi-omics data can be used to study the relationship between environmental factors, lifestyle, genetics and neurodegenerative diseases. These highly interdisciplinary approches often require methodology which goes beyond the state of the art.