In January 2020 I started setting up the Postdoc Academic Carreer Support Centre (PACT) at GEOMAR.

Since 2012  I am Coordinator of  the Helmholtz Graduate School for Ocean System Science and Technology (HOSST). In the joint Transatlantic German-Canadian Research School we offer trainings to the next generation of scientists to become advocates for the ocean. To rise the awareness for the ocean issues, we organize weekly seminars and yearly summer schools.

I am a volcanologist. My research focus lies on the detection of far travelled volcanic ash from explosive volcanic eruptions. Volcanic ash layers, or tephra layers enable an independent comparison of individual palaeo-environmental records from the ocean, land, lakes and ice cores, and help to test the synchronicity of events. 

My working area is the Northern Hemisphere, from Europe to Far East Russia. I trace visible and cryptotephra layers to their eruption source using chemical fingerprinting methods.

I am a trained project manager. From 2007 to 2012 I coordinated the german-russian project KALMAR "KALMAR: Kurile-Kamchatka and Aleutean Marginal Sea-Island Arc Systems": Geodynamic and Climate Interaction in Space and Time". I organized and participated in land expeditions on Kamchatka and ship expeditions in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea. 

2012-         Scientific Employee at GEOMAR / Kiel / Germany 

2007-2011 Scientific Employee at IFM-GEOMAR / Kiel / Germany 

2004-2006 Entrepreneur of my company „Trace“ 

2001-2003 Postdoc Scientific Employee at GEOMAR Research Institute / Kiel / Germany

1999-2001 Postdoc Fellow at Christian-Albrechts–University, Kiel, Germany

1991-1998 Scientific Employee at GEOMAR Research Institute, Kiel,  Germany

1985-1986 Guest Scientist at the University of Toronto, Canada

Projectmanager: Certified Training at CBM Projektmanagement GmbH, Hamburg

PhD: Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel – "Tephrostratigraphische Leithorizonte im Holozän Norddeutschlands"

Diplom in Geology: Ruhr Universität Bochum –“Tephrostratigraphische Gliederung des Quartärprofils Kärlich, Germany“