The biggest of all things that kept me away from posting any updates to this website during the last couple of months, which I haven't mentioned yet, is of course my doctoral dissertation, which I submitted at the end 2012 and which I (successfully) defended on March 6, 2013. (I plan to write more on the dissertation in a later post.) It took some efforts to set everything up, because we wanted that Eric (McCready), who has been my second supervisor, could come and participate and therefore, the defense had to take place during the semester break, something that seems to be rather uncommon. However, everything worked out, thanks to all my three supervisors, who were incredibly super fast with their reviews, and Cecilia Poletto, who, as the vice dean, ensured that the administrative procedure was much faster than usual. She also kindly served as the chair of the defense committee. As it turned out, even Hans-Martin (Gärtner), my third supervisor, was able to be there for the defense. Besides my boss and principled supervisor Ede (Zimmermann), only one additional member for the comittee was needed, which became Markus Bader.
The picture above is from just after everything was done. Besides me in the middle, there are, from left to right, my supervisors Ede, Eric, and Hans-Martin.
After the defense, I now have fulfilled every requirement for obtaining the grade of a "Dr. phil", but -- as it is German law -- I am not yet allowed to carry that title. For this, I first have to publish my dissertation. This will be one of my next projects.