Date of birth: June, 14^th., 1970
Place of birth: Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire)
Citizenship: German / French
Address: PO Box 4245 / 49032 Osnabrück

Born, raised, and educated in Francophone Africa. Studied Economics, History and Political Science at the universities of Bangui (Bangui, Central African Republic), Osnabrück (Osnabrück, Germany), and La Sapienzà (Rome, Italy).
Graduated 1999 (M.A.) at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Osnabrück with a MA-thesis on the evolution of the modern state in pre-colonial and german colonial times in Togo, supervised by Prof. Dr. Josef Schmid (Comparative Politics, Tübingen) and Prof. Dr. Klaus J. Bade (Migration History, IMIS, Osnabrück).

1999-2001 Member of the Graduate School on "Migration in Modern Europe" at the IMIS-Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies at the University of Osnabrück. Serving since 2000 as Editor of the H-Net (Humanities-Net) internet forum H-Africa on Africa's history, culture, and African studies at Michigan State University. 2002-2003 employed in the project PolitikON at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Political Sociology, political behaviour and opinions). 2004 Guest Lecturer at the Università di Catania (Italy), teaching a course in Comparative Politics on "Comparative Transformations in East-South-Perspective". Part-time lecturer (since 2001) in Comparative Politics at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Osnabrück.

Presently completes a doctoral dissertation on the evolution, education, migration, and functions of the elite in Togo entitled "South-North-South Educational Migrations and Social Inclusion: Elites, Networks, and Statehood in Togo (West Africa)", supervised by Prof. Dr. Ralf Kleinfeld (Comparative Politics & Public Policy) as well as by Prof. Dr. Michael Bommes (Migration Research, Sociology) and Prof. Dr. Hans J. Wenzel (Development Studies, Social Geography).
Develops an international research project together with Prof. Dr. Roland Czada on "Patterns of Non-Majoritarian Governance in Africa" aimed at comparing transformation processes in either Francophone, Anglophone, and Lusophone Africa together with local partners.

Comparative Politics, esp. state evolution, development and failure, statehood in Africa, state as organisation, elites, transformation studies and democratisations;
Political Theory, esp. poststructuralist and neo-institutionalist theories;
Methodology of qualitative empirical research, esp. network analysis, biographical research.