Hendrik was born in Essen, Germany, and completed his undergraduate studies at RWTH Aachen University. He earned his Ph.D. in 2019 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he worked with Prof. Moungi Bawendi on advanced optical single-emitter spectroscopy and the study of optical coherences and quantum interference in single quantum dots and quantum defects. He then pursued postdoctoral research in nanophotonics with Prof. Jennifer Dionne in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, where he also served as Associate Director of the Photonics at Thermodynamic Limits Energy Frontiers Research Center (2021–2022).

Hendrik joined the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry as an Assistant Professor in July 2022 and was also appointed Faculty Scientist in the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2023. His research focuses on the emerging interface of nanophotonics and quantum optics with chemistry and materials science. 

He is a Scialog Fellow in Quantum Materials and Information (2025), a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2025) and the ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award (2025), and was one of the Journal Matter’s “35 under 35” in Materials Science (2023).

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