Christian Schuster started his studies in physics at Tuebingen (Germany), before continuing at Trento (Italy) with a BSc in nuclear physics. Due to the program being split between two universities, he received a German Diplom in nanotechnology and an Italian MSc in silicon electronics. Christian then moved to St Andrews (UK) to start his PhD project in silicon photonics as a Marie Curie Fellow; he finished this work at York, where he is still based.