Björn is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the department of Data Science and its Applications at DFKI and a Professor of Real Estate Studies at RPTU. Since 2015, he has been Programme Director of the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes in Real Estate and Facilities - Management and Technology. Björn is a member of the Departmental Council and Founding Ambassador for students and alumni of the Department of Civil Engineering. He received his PhD in Business Administration summa cum laude from EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht. Having graduated from EBS with a major in Real Estate and Finance, he also holds a Master of Science in Real Estate from Georgia State University Atlanta (USA).

Björn’s research focuses on the digital transformation of real estate management and the development and operation of real estate and urban environments. A focus of his research unit at RPTU is the application of machine learning to the real estate domain, in particular for information extraction and business intelligence. Björn is affiliated with the Department of Data Science and its Applications (DSA) at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

Prior to his academic career, he was Head of Research at IPD Investment Property Databank (today: MSCI) Germany and worked for international companies in the field of portfolio analysis and benchmarking of institutional property portfolios.

Björn is Past President (2022-2023) of the European Real Estate Society (ERES). Since 2016 he has been a member of the Board of ERES, where he represents the German Society of Property Researchers (gif). He has been a member of the board of gif since April 2023.

Together with three partners, Björn founded AdvisoRE in 2023. The company provides digital solutions to asset managers and facility service companies.