Guten Tag, as we say in Germany. I’m Raphael and I am, you guessed it, from Germany. I did my Bachelor and Master of Science in the Chemistry Department of the University of Cologne. That’s the city I always thought was famous for its gothic cathedral, but seems to be better known in the UK for its nice Christmas markets. Anyway, through pure happenstance, I found myself taking a nuclear chemistry course during my Bachelors, enjoyed it a lot and just stayed on the nuclear chemistry train. I started out working on a thing called fire-gilding and eventually moved on to more directly nuclear related topics in decommissioning.

That’s what finally led me to the geomicro group and Manchester as a whole. Now I work on cements for geological disposal of nuclear wastes, which is simultaneously more and less exciting than it sounds.

I spend most of my free time prepping, recording or editing various podcasts, but I also do the usual things, like walking around the city, watching movies or reading. You get the idea.

Since I can barely distinguish a rock from a crumpled up piece of paper, picking a favourite mineral is hard, so I’ll just go with the easy answer of “I love them all equally.” To not avoid the question completely, I’ll say Autunite because I googled Uranium minerals and this one does not only look cool, but also is a phosphate, which I generally consider a plus