Markus Weichselbaum - Biography
Markus Weichselbaum was born in Vienna, Austria. In 1985, after high-school, he left Austria to study biology in Germany. Weichselbaum completed his study with a Master of Science in Biophysics (1992, Univ. of Osnabrueck, Germany). During his undergraduate years at university, he developed an interest in computers and programming, and was partner of software company "Pleiss & Weichselbaum Software Development GbR" that developed video games and scientific applications for universities. Weichselbaum commenced and was already two years into a PhD in biophysics in Germany when a brief visit to Australia turned into a 18-months stint at UWA, the University of Western Australia. Enjoying the Australian way of life, he decided not to return to Germany to complete his PhD but instead immigrated to Australia and started a new PhD in Physiology at UWA, which was awarded in 2001, with distinction. After graduation, Weichselbaum took on a position as research scientist at the UWA Medicine department at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. In 2003, with the incorporation of his company Cherry Internet Services, he left medical research and began to dedicate himself to his company full-time.
Weichselbaum's transition from scientist to internet publisher is less surprising considering that he had always strived to combine his scientific and creative interests. His research was published in peer-reviewed journals and more than once his work was subject of the cover illustration of these journals, such as the American Journal for Respiratory and Molecular Cell Biology. Weichselbaum has created video games and music for video games that were published world-wide. He has developed study aids for science students, such as the "Evil Tutor's Guide". Weichselbaum developed several tools and processes during his PhD candidature that were evaluated for patenting by the UWA patent office. One of his confocal microscopy images taken during his PhD was included in the latest edition of "Gray's Anatomy", the seminal anatomy text book for medicine students. On the web, Weichselbaum has published a self defense ebook and authored over 300 web sites, writing on varied topics such as karate, beer tasting, web colors and Xbox 360.
While Weichselbaum's daily work no longer involves looking into microscopes, he now combines his scientific background in neurophysiology with his personal interest in graphical user interface design to develop unique and novel user-centric software applications for the web.