I am a Research Group Leader (Senior Scientist) at the Thünen Institute of Biodiversity, part of Germany’s Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries. Before joining Thünen, I was an Assistant Professor in Sustainable Land Use at the Department of Environmental Geography, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Global Fellow at the Department of Computational Landscape Ecology (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) and the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability (University of British Columbia) as well as an honorary UBC Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (University of British Columbia).

In my research, I specialise on large-scale analyses of land-system changes. I assess their spatial patterns and changes, their determinants, and their associated socio-environmental trade-offs to foster a better understanding of human-environment systems in light of global change. Regionally, my research focus is on Europe and South America. I make intensive use of existing, spatially explicit data sets, combining them in novel ways to answer my research questions. To do so, I largely rely on the statistical programming language R for data pre-processing, analysis, and visualisation.

In my free time, I enjoy spending time outdoors (football, hiking, skiing) or reading a good book while having a cup of coffee.

Please have a look at my blog for (more or less regular) news regarding my research.