Studied Eastern European History, Modern History and Baltic Philology (Latvian and Lithuanian); 1986 M. A. at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster. Research stays in Stockholm and Riga; 1992-2001 research associate and deputy director at the Institute for German and Eastern European Studies of the Göttinger Arbeitskreis e.V.; since 2002 research associate at the Nordost-Institut (IKGN e. V.).