A Physicist with Passion: Nancy completed her physics studies in the USA at the University of Michigan (B.S.) and Harvard University (M.S. and PhD). She moved to Austria (Universität Innsbruck) working as a postdoc and then to Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) on the professor track.

After leaving the academic path for industry, she worked first at Siemens in the telecommunications field as a scientist. Then she moved into management as the Managing Director of both a start-up in Innsbruck and an optical measurement company in Ulm. Then she delved into sales as a Key Account manager, before returning to her roots as a physicist at Carl Zeiss Meditec in Oberkochen.

Today she is a Principal Scientist in the Expert Ladder at Zeiss where she works primarily with a team designing microscopes for eye surgery. She also promotes the Expert Ladder as an alternative career path to management and encourages women at Zeiss to reach for the stars.

Nancy is passionate about her work in physics especially as a career path, because of its endless possibilities as represented in her own career and also because it is so fulfilling! Outside of work she enjoys learning about quantum physics from her husband (a physics professor), adores her two boys, and is spearheading the initiative to found an Albert Einstein Discovery Center in Ulm (his birthplace).

As the president of this non-profit (see www.einstein.center), she feels it is her destiny to establish a ‘museum’ dedicated to the world’s most famous physicist and to promote STEM fields for young people.

 

In the herCAREER Podcast
From Lab to Leadership: A Physicist’s Role in Industry