I am Sira. I grew up in Horn-Bad Meinberg, a very small city in the middle of Germany between Bielefeld and Paderborn, and moved to Münster in 2013 to study mathematics. I finished my PhD in 2026 with summa cum laude and then moved to Ghent, Belgium, for a postdoc. Between my Master's and PhD studies, I worked for one year as a software engineer and for one year as an author. Mathematically, I am interested in group theory, geometry, and combinatorics. In my free time, I like to do a bunch of different things, including powerlifting, cycling, running, and painting my face with makeup.

Short curriculum vitae.

• 2026 and ongoing: Postdoc at Ghent University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hendrik Van Maldeghem.
• 2022–2026: PhD student at the University of Münster under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Linus Kramer, funded by the Dissertation Plus Scholarship of the Claussen-Simon-Stiftung and the Diversity Support Fellowship of the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster.
• 2021–2022: I worked as an author and wrote a book about how norms and stereotypes prohibit equality. Find it here.
  
• 2020–2021: I worked as a software engineer. I was interested in and worked with: Go, Python, Java, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, SQL, Terraform, REST, Containerisation, Bash, Git, Github.
• 2017–2020: Master of Science Mathematics, University of Münster, minor subject philosophy.
• 2013–2017: Bachelor of Science Mathematics, University of Münster, minor subject philosophy.

Poetry Slam.

I had my first poetry slam performance when I was 17 and started to perfrom regularly in 2012, when I was 18. I performed at the North Rhine-Westphalia Championships in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. In 2017 I participated as an MC. I performed at the international German Championships in the U20 division in 2013 and 2014. I performed at the international German Championships in the open division in 2013 and 2017. My biggest performance so far was at the Mikrokosmos Poetry Slam of the Deichbrand Festival. That is Europe's largest poetry slam with over 5000 people in the audience. My best-known performance was for Poetry Slam TV and has almost half a million views on Youtube. You can find it here. You can find a list of publications here.

Sports.

I started powerlifting in 2015. My first competition was the Insanity meet in November 2018, where I finished with a 100kg squat, 62.5kg bench press and 140kg deadlift. After that, I competed at the North Rhine-Westphalia Championship of the BVDK (belongs to the IPF) in June 2019 and squatted 105kg, bench pressed 67.5kg and deadlifted 140kg. I qualified for the German Championship with that. My last competition was again at the Insanity meet in 2019. There I squatted 110kg, bench pressed 72.5kg and deadlifted 150kg. Current gym PRs are 120kg squat, 85kg bench press and 160kg deadlift. My bodyweight has always been around 72kg during that time. I am not competing anymore now, but I still lift. I also like running and cycling. My longest run so far had a distance of 42.61km, my longest ride had a distance of 211.60km.

Other stuff.

I started to learn to play the clarinet when I was 11, even though I had always wanted to learn to play the saxophone. A few years later I managed to switch to the saxophone and played in a jazz big band throughout my teenage years. After moving to Münster, I was no longer able to practice. Nowadays, I enjoy makeup art a lot.

Languages.

My first language is German. I am fluent in English. I learned French in school for 3 years and obtained the DELF-A2 certificate during that time. I started to practice and expand my French again a few years ago. I can understand written and spoken Dutch fluently without any issues. I am not yet fluent in speaking and writing Dutch myself (but soon!). I have some basic knowledge of Swedish.