Born 1959 in Bad Reichenhall. He received the Dipl.-Ing. (FH) degree from the Fachhochschule Munich, Germany (1986) and a PhD in computer science from the University of Arizona (1994) under the direction of Larry L. Peterson. Assistant (since 1994), then Associate (since 2000) and finally Full Professor (since 2002) of Computer Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He also spent time with the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris 6 (LIP6) (in 2000 and in 2002), Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK (in 2000), and MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (in 2001). Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (since 2005).