In 2009 he received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, where he also graduated as an IT security engineer (2005); both under supervision of Christof Paar. In 2008 he received a Master degree in business studies from University Hagen, Germany. From 2009 to 2011 he worked as a post-doctoral research fellow with the Coding and Cryptography Research Group at NTU. He is the editor of the IACR book reviews, co-editor of the ISO standard 29192-2 on lightweight block ciphers, and one of the designers of the award-winning block cipher PRESENT. His primary research interests include lightweight cryptography and side channel aspects for pervasive devices.