Christoph grew up in Anklam, Germany. He studied chemistry (Dipl.-Chem.) and business administration (MBA) and completed his PhD at Heidelberg University (Dr. rer. nat.) in 2014. His undergraduate studies and PhD project were both supported by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. In 2015, Christoph was awarded a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to work at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra from 2015 to 2018. After a brief period as a Rising Star Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, he received an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2019) to return to the ANU, followed by an ARC Future Fellowship (2022). He was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2020 and promoted to Associate Professor in 2023 and Professor in 2026.