Born in Vienna, Austria, lives there
Research and teaching at Graz University, Department of History, 1991-2016
Ad personam contract research, FWF, Austrian Science Fund, Vienna, 2018-2022
| 2018-2022 | Project: Russian ‘Oligarch’ Museums and Foundations | |
| 2012-2016 | Project: Creating Contemporary Art Museums in the Post-Soviet Space | |
| 2008-2011 | Project: Post-Soviet Art Museums in the Era of Globalization | |
| 2004-2007 | Project: From Cultural to Economic Capital, 1985-2005 | |
| 2007 | Defence of post-doctoral thesis Private Art Collecting in the Soviet Union, 1917-1991, at Graz University, degree: Univ.-Doz. | |
| 2006 | Norton T. and Nancy Dodge Fellowship, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, N. J. | |
| 2001-2004 | Hertha-Firnberg-Position, project: The Unofficial Art Market in the USSR, 1917-1991 | |
| 1998 | Research Prize of the City of Vienna | |
| 1995-2001 | Various research projects on art collecting in the USSR (case studies) and on the nationalization and export of formerly private art property, 1917-1938 | |
| 1996 | Theodor-Koerner-Prize | |
| 1991-1995 | Research Assistant to Prof. Harald HEPPNER, study on bourgeois art patronage in Tsarist Russia, 1850-1917 | |
| 1992-2004 | Extensive research stays abroad – in Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA. | |
| 1991 | Ludwig-Jedlicka-Memorial-Prize (Ph. D. thesis) | |
| 1990 | Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph. D.) awarded for doctoral thesis on "The Russian Press during the Bosnian Crisis of 1908/9. Foreign Political Views of Moscow's and St. Petersburg's Leading Press Organs within the Context of European Policy" by the Department of Research on East and South East Europe, Vienna University | |
| 1987-1989 | Academic year at the Moscow-based Institute for Slavic and Balkan Studies (Prof. Tofik Islamov) at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1987/88, and, in 1988/89, various short grants for Leningrad, Western Ukraine, Central Asia, Caucasus | |
| 1985 | Masters Degree (M. A.) from Vienna University (Language Department: English major, Russian minor) | |
| 1980-1981 | Fulbright Grant. Academic year at the College of St. Catherine's, St. Paul, MN, USA (American and cultural studies; English and Spanish); WINTERIM at WCLA, Washington DC | |