His professional career has been focussed on the field of Aerodynamics. After studying Mechanical Engineering at the TU of Braunschweig He obtained his Dr.-Ing. Doctoral degree in 1986. He worked as Research Scientist in various positions at the DLR (first as Head of the Aerothermodynamics Branch of the Institute of Design Aerodynamics and then - until he left the DLR in 2000 - as Head of the High-Speed Aircraft Branch of the Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technologies). He got some industrial and international experience when spending one year at Airbus (Structural Technologies and Future Projects) and in 1988 one year at the NASA Langley Research Center in the US. In Nov. 2000, he became full Professor and the Head of the Institute of Fluid Mechanics at the TU Braunschweig. From 2005 to 2007 he held the position of Dean of the Department before he retired in 2023.