Sebastian studied Biochemistry at the University of Bayreuth. He received his PhD from Heidelberg University, where he worked on targeting and sorting of membrane proteins by the chloroplast Signal Recognition Particle with Irmi Sinning. For his postdoc he joined the group of Elena Conti at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich. There he combined structural biology with biochemistry to study RNA degradation by the nuclear exosome complex.
From March 2019 Sebastian is a group leader and since December 2020 Assistant Professor at the Max Perutz Labs at the University of Vienna.
In November 2022, Sebastian was selected to join the EMBO Young Investigator Program from 2023-2027.