Elmar's Homepage my e-mail: silverbox03(et)yahoo.com (I do not make it clickable in order to avoid spam) Welcome to my homepage! I will build up this page and extend it stepwise, in order to tell about me, my surrounding at Mainz, a bit about daily life and about my travels.
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About me: Where I live

Map and photos (660 K)

About me: Curriculum Vitae

I was born in 1970 at Rheydt, a town in the lower Rhine region not too far from the border to the Netherlands. Now it belongs to Mönchengladbach and both towns together have about 250,000 inhabitants.

Here I spent my childhood, youth and school time and my parents still live here. In spring 1990 I passed my secondary school exam, which is called "Abitur".

In autumn I moved to Düsseldorf, the capital of Northrhine-Westfalia. At the Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf I started studying chemistry. I was involved a bit in representation of students interests in our deparment, editors work for a student journal and also in biology.

After the first five terms (of half a year each) I passed my pre-exam (called Vordiplom = pre-diploma) and studied also a little bit biology.

Finally in 1997 I did my diploma work, which took little more than half a year and left the university end of 1997. My idea was to work in environmental science or administration. But I had to learn, that it was hardly possible to get a job as chemist without having a PhD.

Although my marks were OK I failed. After looking half a year for an appropriate position and earning some money as co-worker in the financial administration at Düsseldorf I gave up the idea to start working without being PhD.

In spring 1998 I moved to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the German Alps in the very south of the country. I began to work on my thesis in an institute for atmospheric environmental research. In Berlin we participated in a field campaign, in order to measure the air transport and changes in the composition of the air across the urban region of Berlin. But I couldn't stay in Garmisch, because of some structural decisions of the institute's director.

End of 1998 I moved to Mainz and here I started again with my PhD thesis, again in the field of atmospheric research. I like the region around Mainz very much and I am rather glad, that I could finish my thesis here. In May 2003 I had the defense. Now I am still in the institute, working in the field of outreach. I am involved in the build up of a climate information network for schools in seven European languages.

Me at my parents in May 2005 in the winter garden and
at home in my flat in Mainz (below) in January 2005

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