I worked in surface science in Germany, where I did my undergrad and grad studies. After my PhD, I thought that it would be nice to live abroad for a while, and the US, which was not too exotic, but also not too similar, seemed to be the right kind of mix. California is a very welcoming environment. Actually, coming to Berkeley was something I toyed with in my mind when I was a teenager, and I forgot about it for many years. Once I had selected Berkeley, I remembered that I had really enjoyed a book written by a postdoc from Lawrence Berkeley Lab, The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll. So in that sense, that teenage dream has fulfilled itself.