CV

Education

Diplom Physik — Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Göttingen · 2001–2007

Master’s-equivalent integrated degree (German pre-Bologna system). Graduated with honors. Diplom thesis at the Institute for X-Ray Physics on X-ray absorption and scattering by small particles via classical Mie Theory, with comparison to Kinematic Scattering approximations used in synchrotron experimental analysis.

Executive Program, Product Strategy — Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Online · 2020

Curriculum spanning opportunity analysis, business model design, agile product methodologies, go-to-market strategy, and product growth.

Independent Research

QMI Lab — Quantum & Machine Intelligence Laboratory 2025 – present

Independent research lab studying intelligence, learning, and representation across classical and quantum computation. Three pillars: foundations of machine intelligence (classical, publish-now), quantum machine intelligence (near-term, benchmark-driven), and quantum world models (long-horizon, agenda-setting).

AstroLLM — Domain-specialized LLM for astronomy 2025 – present

Domain-specialized retrieval-grounded language model family for astronomy. QLoRA fine-tuning on Qwen3 base models with deep integration to NASA ADS, SIMBAD, and the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Custom evaluation suite for grounding accuracy, tool routing, abstention, and pedagogical quality.

Work Experience

Director, Digital Assets — SettleMint Tokyo · Dec 2022 – present

Director title since May 2025; entry covers the SBM-to-Director progression. Leads solutions architecture and technical pre-sales for the digital-asset platform across Japan and Germany.

Selected engagements:

• Sony Bank — solution architecture for the bank’s first stablecoin issuance, with decentralized identity infrastructure satisfying Japanese regulatory requirements.
• Kawasaki Heavy Industries — data-integrity alert system for operational records.
• OCBC Bank (Singapore & China) — three-year on-premise platform implementation with sustained training for 400+ staff.
• Standard Chartered — on-prem digital-asset infrastructure architecture and implementation.
• Islamic Development Bank Institute (Jeddah) — solution architecture for a patented Sharia-compliant trading mechanism.

Conducted enterprise training programs for Fujitsu, MKI (Mitsui), SMFL (Sumitomo), and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Established the standardized technical pre-sales process adopted across SettleMint’s regions.

Senior Business Manager & Solution Architect — SettleMint Stuttgart · Oct 2021 – Dec 2022

Joined the solutions architecture team for technical pre-sales and enterprise client architecture across DACH. Designed integration patterns connecting SettleMint’s platform (Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Corda) to enterprise financial systems, payment infrastructure, and identity providers.

Selected work in this period: advisory architecture on a Coca-Cola Hellenic Metaverse sustainability initiative, and early-stage architecture support for OCBC and Standard Chartered ahead of the Asia-Pacific expansion.

Consultant / Senior Software Engineer — targens GmbH Stuttgart · Nov 2018 – Sep 2021

targens was the IT product and services subsidiary of LBBW; acquired by GFT Technologies in 2023. Engineering, product strategy, and integration architecture for enterprise distributed-ledger products in banking and capital markets.

Selected work:

• DLT2Pay — integration architecture connecting distributed-ledger networks (Ethereum, Corda) to traditional payment infrastructure (SEPA, Swift, TARGET2).
• mySaveID — interoperable identity module bridging targens’s trusted-provider-based decentralized identity product to the Hyperledger ecosystem (Indy/Aries with Bosch, Fabric).
• mySaveDOCS — on-premise decentralized information management product.
• Banking specialty tools — IBM Mainframe data anonymization for GDPR compliance and document-originality verification for DLT-based ABCP issuances.

Founder — GoCoppia Frankfurt · Oct 2015 – Sep 2021

Long-running independent exploration of cross-border financial infrastructure concepts, held alongside primary engineering and consulting engagements during this period. Concluded ahead of full focus on enterprise digital-asset architecture work at SettleMint.

Director of Technology / Secretary — Jan Dhan Co-operative Credit Society Ltd. Mumbai · May 2017 – Nov 2018

Co-founded a cooperative and microfinance banking institution serving underbanked populations; led technology and operations during the inception period. The institution continues to operate today.

Selected work:

• Branchless hybrid architecture — designed and implemented the institution’s nationwide service model using India Stack primitives (Aadhaar, UPI, AePS, BharatQR) and standard payment rails (NEFT, RTGS, IMPS).
• Product design — cooperative deposit and credit products focused on sustainable organic growth in microfinance segments.
• M&A and portfolio integration — brokerage acquisition, NBFC integration, and the transfer of securitised credit portfolios from external holdings.

CEO / Co-Founder — Transelektra Mumbai · Aug 2015 – Oct 2018

Co-founded a sustainable-energy solutions provider for residential and SME customers. Oversaw design, engineering, and project execution for solar installations including 100kW+ commercial systems. Established procurement guidelines, secured Net Metering approvals, and implemented a quality-assurance framework end-to-end.

Technical Consultant / Developer — SUMO Instruments Mumbai · Apr 2015 – May 2016

Led software architecture for an IoT telemetry system on Smart Fuel Tankers — on-device firmware, cloud monitoring platform, and a full-stack web prototype for operations dashboards. Implemented OTA control for connectivity-limited rural environments.

Co-Founder — Zamosa Münster · Jun 2013 – Jan 2014

Mobile-marketing platform for European offline apparel retailers. Built a location-based recommender system using location, demographic, preference, and behavioral signals, plus campaign-targeting predictive analytics. Implemented an early Bluetooth Beacon-based loyalty mechanism in 2013, ahead of mainstream commercial adoption.

Co-Founder — Voicedrop Münster · May 2012 – May 2013

Interactive communication platform for educational use cases. Co-developed a patent-pending browser-native media format using WebRTC, capturing live in-browser interactions at file sizes roughly 50× smaller than equivalent video. Co-authored the business cases and plan that secured angel funding.

Earlier Research

DFG Doctoral Research Fellow — Institut für Astrophysik, Göttingen Göttingen · Jun 2007 – May 2012

Doctoral research on a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft fellowship. Studied stellar rotation and magnetic activity in late-type stars — specifically M-dwarfs, the primary hosts of habitable-zone exoplanet candidates.

Selected work:

• Observational astrophysics — multiple campaigns at European Southern Observatory facilities in Chile, collecting high-resolution spectroscopic data on target stars.
• Spectroscopic data analysis pipelines — custom IDL tools for spectrum reduction, activity indicators, and rotational broadening measurements.
• Scientific communication — public lectures and a newspaper article on astrophysics for general audiences.

Output: peer-reviewed paper in The Astronomical Journal (Reiners et al. 2012, see Publications).

Research and Teaching Assistant — Department of Physics, Göttingen Göttingen · Dec 2004 – May 2007

Pre-doctoral period at the Department of Physics, spanning research at the Institute for X-Ray Physics and undergraduate teaching. X-ray scattering work using analytical (Ray Theory) and numerical (Mathematica) approaches with applications in material sciences and biophysics; carried into the Diplom thesis on X-ray absorption and scattering by small particles via classical Mie Theory.

Scientific Assistant — Institut für Zoologie und Anthropologie, Göttingen Göttingen · Jul 2003 – Jan 2004

DFG-funded research project — animalbase.org — an open scientific resource for historical zoological literature and species descriptions. Designed the underlying database and built a custom expert-crowdsourcing web platform (Apache Tomcat, JSP, Oracle RDBMS) for distributed taxonomic contribution. Co-developed the integration with the Göttingen State and University Library’s ancient-literature digitization project — bridging historical zoological texts and structured taxonomic data, in what would now be called scientific knowledge graph work.

Research Assistant — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization Göttingen · Nov 2002 – Jul 2003

Nonlinear dynamics group.

Selected work:

• Reinforcement learning for artificial-muscle systems — developed Q-learning agents controlling simulated artificial-muscle architectures, with the underlying biomechanical dynamics modeled through Lagrangian mechanics. Reinforcement learning combined with classical mechanics, in 2002 — more than a decade before deep RL and close to two decades before physics-informed ML emerged as named research areas.
• Pattern recognition — collaborated on pattern-matching work inspired by the feline visual cortex, contributing to the institute’s broader research on pattern formation in biological and computational systems.

Publications

Reiners, A., Joshi, N., Goldman, B. A Catalog of Rotation and Activity in Early-M Stars. The Astronomical Journal, 143, 93 (2012). ADS

Catalog of 334 M dwarfs with high-resolution optical spectra for 206 targets, projected rotational velocities (vsin i), and Hα emission measurements. Statistical study of the rotation–activity relationship across the boundary to full convection.

Languages

• Native or bilingual: German, English, Marathi, Hindi
• Limited working proficiency: Spanish
• Elementary proficiency: Japanese

Honors

Best Technical Implementation — Blockchain Hackathon Stuttgart Feb 2019

Won at the largest blockchain hackathon in Germany. Project: authenticity-proof — document-originality verification using distributed ledger technology. Team prize: €3,000.

First Prize — One Universe Haeckathon, æternity Blockchain Network Sep 2019

Won the annual flagship hackathon for the æternity Blockchain Network. Team submission with kryptokrauts.

Certifications

• Corda Certified Developer — R3 (Dec 2018)
• IBM Blockchain Foundation Developer — IBM (2018)
• Advanced MEDDPICC® — MEDDIC Academy (Sep 2023)
• Financial Development and Financial Inclusion — IMFx on edX (Aug 2020)
• Introduction to Aerospace Engineering: Astronautics and Human Spaceflight — MITx on edX (Aug 2020)
• In progress: IBM Qiskit Developer Certification

Skills

Solution Architecture · Digital Assets · Machine Learning · Quantum Computing · Reinforcement Learning · Large Language Models · Computational Physics · Distributed Ledger Technology · Decentralized Identity · Knowledge Graphs · Software Architecture · Cross-Border Payments · Pattern Recognition · Numerical Methods