Team of the Applied Sedimentary Geology

Education & Professional life

Since 2018:
Research Associate, Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Frankfurt, General Directorate (until 05/2024)

"Own position", funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation)

2016-2018:
Project coordinator and research assistant, Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Frankfurt, General Directorate

Main activities:

• Project coordination and data management of the projects CAME II (Crossing Climatic Tipping Points - Consequences for Central Asia)
• Q-TiP (Quaternary Tipping Points of Lake Systems in the Arid Zone of Central Asia), funded by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research)

Since 2016:
Lecturer at the Institute for Applied Geosciences at the Technical University of Darmstadt

Teaching activities:

• Stratigraphy and Earth History
• Statistics
• Realization of the field course "Mainz Basin"

2008-2016:
Research assistant at the Institute for Applied Geosciences at the Technical University of Darmstadt

Habilitation in palaeontology and sedimentary geology at the Department of Materials and Geosciences

2004-2008:
Research assistant (Post-Doc) at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Nature Museum in Frankfurt in the palaeobotany department

1996-2000:
Ph.D. candidate at the Geoscientific Center (formerly: Institute and Museum for Geology and Paleontology) of the University of Göttingen in the Geobiology Department (Degree summa cum laude)

Ph.D. Thesis: Paleoecology of a coastal bog from the Eocene of Central Europe using the example of the Wulfersdorfer seams and their accompanying layers (Helmstedter Oberflözgruppe, Helmstedt open-cast mine)

1988-1994:
Study of geology and palaeontology, University of Göttingen

Topic of the diploma thesis: Palynological investigations in the Wulfersdorf seam of the Helmstedter Oberflözgruppe (Middle Eocene, Helmstedt open-cast mine)

Current Scientific Projects

• Interrelationships between the biodiversity of terrestrial plants and the climate over 10 million years in the early palaeogene of the Helmstedt lignite mining area (DFG GZ LE 2376 / 4-1 and LE 2376 / 4-2)

Methods

• Palynology and micropaleontology (e.g. pollen, spores, algae, amoebas, diatoms, dinoflagellates)
• Palynofacies
• Paleobotany
• Stratigraphy
• Sedimentology
• Limnogeology
• Varve analyzes
• Multivariate statistical analysis
• Time series analysis

Awards

• 2014
  Rolf and Marlies Teichmüller Prize 2014 of the German Society for Geosciences for outstanding work in the field of coal petrology and other fields of the study of energy resources
• 2014
  Hans-Christian Schröder-Hohenwarth Prize 2014 of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research (SGN) for the best publication 2012 in "Nature - Research - Museum"
• 2002
  Hans-Bruno-Geinitz-Preis 2002 of the State Natural History Collections Dresden for an internationally outstanding dissertation
• 1996-1998
  Doctoral scholarship from the state of Lower Saxony