Born: September 16th, 1977 in Fribourg, Switzerland.
Biography: I grew up in Switzerland until I was 18. My first memories are from our stay on Hof Wieseche in the canton of Basel Land where our family lived from 1978 to 1982. We then moved to Puidoux (VD) for 7 years where we ran a small traditional swiss farm. We made our own cheese, had some cows (including "mine" called Murmel), quite a few fruit trees, and also vegetable growing. I attended the first five years of school in Morges at the Rudolf Steiner School Lausanne. In 1989 my family moved to Kroeschenbrunnen in the Emmental. We lived on the farm Obergummen until 1994, and another year in Trubschachen (BE).
In 1995 I emigrated to Canada with my mom and siblings. We started a horse farm just outside London (ON), in Arva. I did my last year of high school at Medway and then did an undergrad in Astronomy at the University of Western Ontario (1996 - 2000). In 2000 I moved to Calgary to obtain my masters in astronomy, working with Russ Taylor. My thesis involved studying neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way Galaxy. In 2002 I moved on to Minneapolis (MN) to continue these studies with John Dickey, at the University of Minnesota. I obtained my PhD in Astrophysics in the summer of 2006. This was followed by two brief postdoc positions: first in Minneapolis, continuing to work with John Dickey, and from January to May 2007 in Penticton (BC) at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. In the summer of 2007 I quit that job and moved back to Arva.
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| Portrait by Berit, about 2001 | Simon with Sophia, 2005 | On top of the mountain, 2005 |
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| After a hard day of paddling with Andy, Simon R., and Chris P. in 2000 | ||