Curriculum Vitae

Selected highlights

• New measurements with neutrinos. Proposed and developed the frameworks for measurements next-generation detectors were not designed for. These include leptonic CP violation with sub-GeV atmospheric neutrinos (Hyper-K, DUNE), atmospheric $\nu_\tau$ appearance via neutral currents (JUNO), neutral-current solar neutrino detection (DUNE), and the cosmic-ray spectrum measured through atmospheric neutrinos.
• Dark matter and new physics with neutrino detectors. New probes of dark matter captured in Jupiter and annihilating in the Galaxy, dark matter-nucleon interactions constrained by ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray acceleration, stellar probes (white dwarfs, stars orbiting supermassive black holes), and the first neutrino-telescope limits on long-lived supersymmetric particles.
• Predictions that hold up at the detector level. Collaboration member of IceCube, P-ONE, and Borexino, providing the atmospheric-cascade and bioluminescence background models their analyses depend on. My phenomenology for Hyper-K, DUNE, JUNO, and KM3NeT is independent of those collaborations, but is built on that experience.
• Open tools. Lead developer and maintainer of Prometheus, the open-source neutrino telescope simulation now used across the field, and author of softpaws (analytic neutrino-telescope effective areas), Fennel (light yields) and bib-checker (bibliography validation against INSPIRE).
• Independent visibility. 13 invited talks and seminars, including Stanford, Harvard, Queen's, Texas A&M, Ohio State, UNSW, and the Mitchell Conference.
• Mentoring. Supervised three PhD students, two Master's students, and three undergraduate or junior researchers. Graduate lecturer in dark matter direct detection. Organized the Melbourne theory seminar series.
• Funding and recognition. Marie Curie Seal of Excellence (2021), Laby Early Career Researcher Award, and an ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter ECR Special Initiatives grant.

Academic appointments

• Oct 2025 – Present
  Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Iowa, USA

  • Developing theoretical methods for atmospheric neutrinos and leptonic CP violation.
  • Developing phenomenology targeting Hyper-K and DUNE.
  • Supervising graduate research. Graduate lecturer in dark matter direct detection.
• Feb 2026 – Present
  Affiliate / User, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA

  • Supporting phenomenological work for the laboratory's neutrino program, including DUNE.
• Sep 2022 – Aug 2025
  Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Neutrino Phenomenology, The University of Melbourne, Australia

  • Established an independent research program spanning neutrino phenomenology, dark matter theory, and detector simulation.
  • Proposed new measurement channels for JUNO ($\nu_\tau$ appearance) and DUNE (neutral-current solar neutrinos).
  • Co-developed the Prometheus open-source neutrino telescope simulation. Supervised one PhD and one Master's student, and organized the theory seminar series (2023 to 2025).
  • Attracted competitive early-career funding from the Laby ECR Award and the ARC CoE Dark Matter ECR Special Initiatives program.
• Oct 2025 – Jun 2026
  Honorary Fellow, The University of Melbourne, Australia
• Sep 2022 – Jun 2026
  Affiliate Fellow, Ohio State University (CCAPP), USA

Collaboration membership. P-ONE (2019 to present) and IceCube (2017 to 2023), contributing atmospheric-cascade and bioluminescence background modelling, dark matter and new-physics analyses. Earlier work with Borexino on cosmic muon modulations.

Education

• 2017–2021
  Technical University Munich, Germany
  Dr. rer. nat. in Physics, summa cum laude. Advisor: Prof. Elisa Resconi

  • Thesis: "Precision Background Modelling for Neutrino Detectors." Cascade-equation, Monte Carlo, and machine-learning methods for particle transport in neutrino detectors.
• 2014–2017
  Technical University Munich, Germany
  M.Sc. Physics. Advisor: Prof. Andreas Weiler
• 2011–2014
  University of Innsbruck, Austria
  B.Sc. Physics. Advisor: Prof. Gebhard Grübl

Funding and awards

• 2023
  ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, ECR Special Initiatives Program (12,000 AUD)
  Competitive early-career grant supporting an independently proposed dark matter research project.
• 2023
  Laby Early Career Researcher Award (4,000 AUD)
  School of Physics award recognizing outstanding early-career research at the University of Melbourne.
• 2021
  Marie Curie Seal of Excellence, project "Nu-Eyes"
  European Commission recognition of a self-authored fellowship proposal rated above the funding threshold.
• 2019
  TUM and Imperial College London Collaboration Fund ($2,680)
  Seed funding for "Advanced mathematical models for the simulation chain of neutrino detectors."

Teaching and mentoring

I have supervised three PhD students, two Master's students, and three undergraduate or junior research projects, and I deliver graduate lectures in dark matter and particle physics. My mentoring model is to give students a self-contained piece of a larger program, with a clear path to publication. The work of Ho Man Yim (PhD candidate, Melbourne) on sub-GeV atmospheric CP violation grew directly into a paper, and Kruteesh Desai, whose Bachelor's project I supervised, went on to lead a published dark matter search with IceCube and P-ONE.

• Lecturer, University of Iowa. Dark Matter Direct Detection (graduate lectures).
• Teaching Assistant, TUM. Experimental Physics 1, 3, and 4, and Theoretical Mechanics (summer course), 2018 to 2020.

Supervised students

• Esmenaz Isik (PhD, Iowa). Solar Atmospheric Neutrinos
• Ruohan Li (PhD, TUM). Dark Matter and Bioluminescence Searches with P-ONE
• Ho Man Yim (PhD, Melbourne). Probing CP Violation with Sub-GeV Atmospheric Neutrinos
• Jeongoh Park (Master's, Melbourne). Dark Matter Annihilation Signals in JUNO
• Jan Henrik Schmidt-Dencker (Master's, TUM). Stau Search in IceCube, published as an ICRC proceeding
• Kruteesh Desai (Undergraduate / junior, TUM). Solar Atmospheric Neutrino Modelling
• Fruzsina Mädlings (Undergraduate / junior, TUM). Search for Muon Tracks in STRAW Deep-Sea Data
• Mingyang Li (Undergraduate / junior, TUM). Muons from Electromagnetic Showers

• Research community. Organized and ran the theory seminar series at the University of Melbourne for two years, 2023 to 2025.
• Group infrastructure. Two open tools support research training. nestling (GitHub) is an onboarding framework for new students, and jc-ppi (GitHub) runs a journal club.

Additional experience

• Holo-Light, Germany. Programmer (2017). Developed a precision VR input device, the "Holo-Stylus," for the Microsoft HoloLens, and built and demonstrated a working prototype.
• AVL Advanced Simulation Technologies, Austria. Solver developer (2009, 2013, 2014). Acoustic modelling of car engines, improving a Fortran wave-based-technique framework in its integration methods and coordinate systems.
• Austrian Red Cross, Austria. Paramedic (2010/11). Paramedic training and duties during civil service.
• Languages: English and German (native).

Publications, software and talks have their own pages. See Publications, Software, Talks.