This article is part of the series 3 years of freedom — a report on my stay as a post-doctoral researcher at the Media Lab of Aalto Universiy.
My professional background is in Computer Science in the Natural Science, which I studied from 1999 to 2006 at Bielefeld University in Germany. My focus within this area was robotics.
In 2010, I received a PhD for my work on Tangible Auditory Interfaces, a combination of scientific sonification with tangible interaction. Between 2006 and 2010, I worked as a research assistant at various institutes of Bielefeld University, prominently in the Ambient Intelligence Group (lead by Thomas Hermann) and the Neuroinformatics Group (lead by Helge Ritter) of the CITEC Cognitive Interaction Technology, Center of Excellence.
With this rather scientific background, I applied for the post-doctoral researcher position at Aalto University and was appointed for the following three years.
I remember sitting in Philip Dean’s office when signing the contract. I asked him about what the department will expect from me. His answer was simple: the only thing they want me to do is get my research career started. A request, I was obeying with joy over the course of the next three years.