Aside from research, I enjoy being physically active and spending time outdoors. These days, you can find me running in the mornings or playing squash or tennis in the evenings. Since moving to Abu Dhabi, my new favorite activity has become dancing Salsa and Bachata.
My research interests are profoundly shaped by my childhood and adolescence. I grew up as one of five children in a single-parent household in a small village in rural Germany. Because my mother had to work multiple jobs to provide for us, my siblings and I were often cared for by foster families. The social and economic disparities between our family and others that I experienced during this time crucially shaped my later interest in family demography and inequality.
Further, unlike many other children in similar situations, I was fortunate to befriend children from middle-class backgrounds whose parents often supported me. Possibly for this reason, I am the only one in my family who had the privilege to attend college and graduate school. This experience is the foundation of my research into cross-SES friendship and socioeconomic attainment.
This experience also led me to join programs that promote social integration across class boundaries, including Big Brothers Big Sisters in Germany (2010–2014) and again in the United States (2023–2024), as well as Stichting Eet mee! in the Netherlands (2015–2017). Through these programs, I met weekly with children and seniors from disadvantaged backgrounds. I strongly believe in such initiatives because they counteract growing socioeconomic segregation.
In a similar vein, I believe that the perspectives and agendas of scientists from backgrounds underrepresented in academia should be supported for universities to serve all strata of society.