| 1988 - 1994 | Studies in Computer Science and Mathematics at the Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken. | |
| 03 / 1990 | Bachelor's degree (Vordiplom) in Mathematics. | |
| 10 / 1990 | Bachelor's degree (Vordiplom) in Computer Science. | |
| 11 / 1994 | Master's degree (Dipl.-inform.) in Computer Science; Title of master's thesis: Fast Parallel Space Allocation, Estimation and Integer Sorting; Advisor: Torben Hagerup. |
| 02 / 2000 | Ph.D. (Dr.-ing.) in Computer Science; Summa cum laude; Title of dissertation: Provably Optimal Scheduling of Similar Tasks; Advisor: Kurt Mehlhorn. |
| 06 / 2000 | Awarded the Otto-Hahn-Medal 1999 of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (for outstanding work by young scientists). |
| 10 / 2001 | Awarded the Dr. Eduard Martin Preis 2000 of the Universität des Saarlandes (for outstanding dissertation). |
| 02 / 2007 | Won the Teaching Innovation Award from the CS department of the Universität des Saarlandes (for lecture on Suffix Arrays WS06/07). |
| 10 / 2007 | Awarded the Heinz-Billing Award (together with Stefan Funke, for our work on ultrafast shortest paths in road networks). |
| 12 / 2007 | Awarded the Dr. Meyer-Struckmann-Wissenschaftspreis (for the work on efficient search in very large databases). |
| 10 / 2008 | Awarded the SaarLB Wissenschaftspreis (together with Stefan Funke, for our work on ultrafast routing in road networks). |
| 10 / 2008 | Awarded the Alcatel-Lucent Forschungspreis Technische Kommunikation (for the work on fast and intelligent search, in particular CompleteSearch). |
| 2000 - 2007 | Researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, head of research group on Information Retrieval and Applied Algorithmics (since 2007, W2). |
| 2008 - 2009 | Research group leader (W2) in the MMCI Cluster of Excellence in Saarbrücken. | |
| 2008 - 2009 | Visiting scientist at Google Zürich (04/2008 - 07/2009). |
| 06 / 2008 | Offer for full professorship (W3) from the University of Mainz, declined. | |
| since 2009 | Full professor (W3), University of Freiburg, Chair for Algorithms and Data Structures. |
| 2012 - 2015 | Awarded a Google Focused Research Award (for a project on multi-modal route planning, with Peter Sanders and Dorothea Wagner). |
| 2012 - 2018 | Dean of Studies, Faculty of Engineering, University of Freiburg | |
| 2012 - 2013 | University Teaching Award and Faculty Teaching Award (twice) | |
| since 2018 | Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Freiburg | |
| since 2018 | Member of the Enquete Commission on Artificial Intelligence of the German federal parliament (Bundestag). | |
