I am Sira. I grew up in Horn-Bad Meinberg, which is a very small city in the middle of Germany between Bielefeld and Paderborn, and moved to Münster in 2013 in order to study mathematics. I finished my master's degree in 2020. After that I worked as a software engineer and an author for some time until I came back to academia in 2022. That is when I started my PhD program. I am interested in buildings, incidence geometry, group theory and combinatorics. In my free time I like to do powerlifting.

Short curriculum vitae:

• 2022 and ongoing: PhD student, Mathematics Münster Graduate School, Universität Münster.
• 2021-2022: Worked as an author and wrote a book about how norms and stereotypes prohibit equality. Find it here.
  
• 2020-2021: 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, Universität Münster, Minor subject: Philosophy.
• 2013-2017: Bachelor of Science Mathematics, Universität 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 . It 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 | Powerlifting

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. 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 now not competing anymore. I still lift. Besides that I like running and cycling.

Other stuff

I started to learn to play the clarinet when I was 11, even though I always wanted to learn to play the saxophone. A few years later I managed to switch to saxophone and played in a jazz big band for my whole teenage years. After moving to Münster I was not able to practice anymore. Nowadays I enjoy make up 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 have started to practice and expand my French again a few years ago. I can understand written Dutch and spoken Dutch mostly, depending on the speaker. I am currently practicing my speaking and writing in Dutch. I have some basic knowledge of Swedish.

Pronouns

I prefer they/them pronouns.