Broadly speaking, I am interested in the intersection of attention, emotion, and motivation. My current research examines the role of attentional and perceptual processes and emotions in self-regulation, in particular self-control behavior. Another line of research concerns the influence of regulatory processes and especially emotion regulation goals on automatic affective reactions such as emotional attention.

I received my diploma (~ master’s) degree in Psychology at the University of Würzburg, Germany, in 2005. My diploma thesis - supervised by Michael Häfner and Fritz Strack - examined the influence of mood on automatic evaluations and motivational tendencies. In 2010, I obtained my PhD at Ghent University, Belgium. In my PhD thesis - supervised by Jan De Houwer – I investigated when and how temporary goals guide the automatic allocation of attention. Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow of the research foundation Flanders (FWO) at the University of Chicago in Ayelet Fishbach’s lab.