My research focuses on theoretical spintronics and the physics of novel two-dimensional materials. I started my research career at SUNY Stony Brook, where I got my PhD in 1997 on the topic of atomic vibrations in amorphous solids under Phil Allen. In 1997 I moved to the University of Maryland in College Park, to the group of Sankar Das Sarma, as a postdoc. This was the time when spintronics was being born, and we got a chance to contribute to this exciting research ever since. After a brief research stance at Max-Planck for Complex Systems in Dresden, and three years of assistant and associate professorship at Karl-Franzens University in Graz, Austria, I finally moved in 2004 to Regensburg as a university professor. In the process I have established a competent research group working on diverse topics of fundamental physics and materials science. I am a member of the EU Graphene Flagship and a recipient of the Brazilian Science Without Borders research prize. Our current work encompasses first-principles (DFG) investigations of two-dimensional materials such as graphene transition-metal dichalcogenides, and phosphorene; phenomenological analysis of spin electronic and transport in electronic systems; superconducting spintronics; spin relaxation; excitonic physics; and spin electronic properties of semiconductor heterostructures.