After studies at the universities of Erlangen – Nürnberg and Rome, I graduated 2003 in the fields of Modern history an Medieval German language and literature at the Eberhard – Karls Universität Tübingen (Magister Artium). Already my thesis about German merchants in Renaissance Lisbon indicated my future concern with history, language, and culture of the lusophone world. After graduating from university I went to Lisbon, where I initionally supervised an ecclesiastical as well as a corporative archive. In 2005 I recieved a four – year scholarship by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia on behalf of a research project about German merchants in Lisbon in the 18th century.

Before my return to Germany I published two books in Portugal with the collaboration of the political cientist Gerhard Schickert: Thomas Denk/Gerhard Schickert, Die Bartholomäus – Brüderschaft der Deutschen in Lissabon. Entstehung und Wirken, vom späten Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. A Irmandade de São Bartolomeu dos Alemães em Lisboa. Origem e actividade, do final da Idade Média até à Actualidade, 368 p. (2009) and Chronik der Deutsch – Evangelischen Gemeinde zu Lissabon. 1865. Verfaβt von Wilhelm Rothe. Hrsgg. von Gerhard Schickert und Thomas Denk, 139 p. (2010).

Furthermore, in 2011 and 2012 I developed an extensive genealogical database of the members of the German Lutheran church in Lisbon since the 18th century. In 2013, already back in Germany, I received a request for a long – term translation project. It refered to the transcription of a collection of letters of a German immigrant in 19th century Brazil and it´s translation into Portuguese. From this soon arose the idea to turn translation into a profession.