I’m a fully qualified teacher for primary and general secondary school (grades 3-10) for the subjects geography (incl. combination of subjects), English and mathematics. My German degree was recognized by the EDK as equivalent to a Swiss teaching qualification for secondary school (grades 7-9).
Additionally I hold an M.A. in European Bilingual Education, an additional qualification in Intercultural Education/ Foreigner Pedagogy and a Dr. phil. degree in geography, with a doctoral thesis that focused on geography education.
I also have completed an MA in Jewish education.
I have more than 10 years of experience working in research/ teaching positions. First, I worked at the Heidelberg University of Education in Germany (2007-2015) in positions from research assistant/ associate in several research projects over being an adjunct lecturer or fellowship holder to being a substitute professor for physical geography and its didaktics. Since 2015 I’m a lecturer in geography and geography education at the School of Education FHNW in Switzerland and since 2017 the subject coordinator for the new integrated subject RZG (Spaces-Times-Societies, i.e. Social Studies). Since 2018, I hold a joint appointment – I’m now a lecturer in geography, Jewish studies and their education. I teach the Jewish studies component as well as subject specific education courses in the new ethics-religions-community (ERG) teacher program there.
Not just in that area an international outlook is important to me. For instance:
- I also had a supervisor from Germany and one from Israel for my doctorate degree and continue to collaborate internationally in research;
- I organized an international conference on geography and earth science teacher education (#IPGESTE2016)
- I’m a member in academic associations not just in Switzerland (VGD), but also the international NCGRE; and volunteer as a webmaster for the IGU-CGE.
- I completed a semester abroad at the University of Auckland (New Zealand), teaching internships in India and Mexico, language courses in Israel and Russia, and a short research stay at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) as well as the summer face-to-face semester at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel).