09/2020-12/2021

UCLA, Los Angeles, CA,

Certificate in Business and Management of Entertainment

01/2013-07/2019

University of Kent, Canterbury, UK,

PhD in Film Studies

09/2004-05/2006

School of Visual Arts, New York, NY,

Master of Fine Arts in Computer Art

09/2000-07/2004

University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt,

Germany, Diploma in Media System Design

09/2022-Present

Global Head of Characters and Environments, Mikros Animation, Technicolor Creative Studios

04/2021-09/2022

Global Head of Characters, Mikros Animation, Technicolor Creative Studios

08/2018-04/2021

Head of Characters, Blue Sky Studios, Greenwich, CT

09/2013-08/2018

Character Development Supervisor, Blue Sky Studios, Greenwich, CT

01/2013-08/2014

Rigging Show Lead, Blue Sky Studios, Greenwich, CT

Rigging Show Lead for "Peanuts"" (2015)

06/2012-08/2013

Senior Character Technical Director, Blue Sky Studios, Greenwich, CT

01/2012-01/2013

Lead Character Technical Director, Blue Sky Studios, Greenwich, CT

Creative lead for face rigs on "Rio 2" (2014)

05/2009-05/2012

Character Technical Director, Blue Sky Studios, Greenwich, CT

Creating expressive, flexible and efficient rigs that allow animators to bring life to the characters and props in films like "Ice Age": Building skeletons, setting up deformations and engineering control systems

09/2006-03/2009

Lead Technical Director, Spans & Partner, Hamburg, Germany

Character rigging, set supervision, development of pipeline tools, special effects, including water, cloth and particles

01/2005-05/2006

Unix / PC Lab Assistent, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

Maintaining the MFA Computer Art network and assisting the staff in all aspects of Computer System Administration, maintaining the MFA Computer Art Intranet website

02/2004-06/2004

3D Internship, ProSiebenSat.1 Production, Berlin, Germany

3D animation and modeling with Lightwave in one of Germany's largest TV production house

08/2002-02/2003

3D Scanning Internship, Gentle Giant Studios, Burbank, CA

3D scanning and preparing of 3D scans for toys and special effects

10/2001-07/2002

Research Assistent, Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV), Darmstadt, Germany

Modeling of low resolution characters for Virtual Reality purposes

07/2001-09/2001

Programming Internship, IBM Hannover, Germany

Development of Java-Applets and Java Server Pages

School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA (09/2017 - 05/2019)

Instructor for courses Thesis I and II in the BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects department.

Filmakademie, Stuttgart, Germany (January 2016)

2 day Graduate Seminar "Face Rigging & Advanced Rigging Concepts for Feature Animation"

AnimSchool, USA (07/2011 - 07/2013)

Teaching Character Technical Direction

School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA (2005)

Graduate Seminar in Maya (basic interface, modeling, lighting, rendering)

Bronx Community College (CUNY), Bronx, New York, USA (2005)

Portfolio discussion, Gallery talk

Specialized in character creation workflow & organization

Software: Maya, XSI, Adobe Creative Suite, Shotgun, Office

Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac

Programming languages: Python, MEL, PHP, MySQL, HTML, C++

German (native), English (fluent), French (advanced), Italian (basic), Japanese (beginner)

VES Award Nomination, 2016

Animago film festival award nomination, 2008

Fulbright Professional Enhancement Grant, 2005

Fulbright Scholarship, 2004

Scholarship of Carl-Duisberg-Gesellschaft, Germany, 2002

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Member of the Visual Effects Society

Member of ASIFA-Hollywood

Women in Animation International, Inc.

Fulbright Alumni E.V.