Currently a Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham, England, UK, I have previously been Professor of Political Science at the University of Nottingham (2006-2010) and the University of Bath where I started as a Lecturer in German Studies in 1999, before being promoted to Reader in German and European and Politics in 2003 and then to Professor of Politics in 2004. Between 1996 and 1999, I worked at Keele University as DAAD Lecturer in German Studies.

Erstes Staatsexamen (BA) in German and English, University of Leipzig,1995

M.Phil. in Political Thought and Intellectual History, University of Cambridge, 1996

Ph.D. in Political Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1999

I specialise in the management of contemporary security challenges, especially in the prevention and settlement of ethnic conflicts and in post-conflict state-building in deeply divided and war-torn societies. I have extensive expertise in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East and have also worked on a wide range of other conflicts elsewhere, including in Africa and in Central, South and Southeast Asia. Bridging the divide between academia and policymaking, I have been involved in various phases of conflict settlement processes, including in the disputed territories in Iraq, in Transnistria and Gagauzia (Moldova), and in Yemen.