Teaching & mentoring

Teaching experience

ongoing (since 2020): supervision of various individual student research projects as part of the MSc course "Experimental and Theoretical Evolutionary Ecology" at FU Berlin.  

ongoing (since 2019): "Communicate your Science on Social Media" for PhD students at IGB. 

ongoing (since 2016): teaching appointment “Ecology and taxonomy field course” for BSc students at HU Berlin (organised by Prof. Liliane Ruess). 

ongoing (since 2017): one lecture on "predator-prey interactions" in the “Trends in Aquatic Ecology” lecture series for MSc students organized by IGB & FU Berlin. 

09/2011 – 12/2012: teaching associate at the Department of Biology, TU Darmstadt: undergraduate courses “Terrestrial Ecology” (field course), “Principles of Ecology” (lab course) and “emb/KIVA” (interdisciplinary project course in cooperation with the Departments of Engineering, Political Sciences and Philosophy). 

Summer semester 2011: teaching assignment (Lehrauftrag - undergraduate field course “Terrestrial Ecology”) at the Department of Biology, TU Darmstadt. 

Summer semester 2005 & '06: student teaching assistant animal taxonomy (“zoologische Bestimmungsübungen“) at the Department of Biology, TU Darmstadt. 

Student supervision

ongoing (since 04/2023): main supervision MSc project Isabell Leppin, FU Berlin. Preliminary project title: "Effects of artificial light at night on web-building and diet composition in orb-web spiders."

01/2023 – 11/2023: main supervision BSc project Pauline Staroske, FU Berlin. "Mayfly’s species composition, sex distribution and trait-environment relationships under varying levels of artificial light at night " 

04/2022 – 10/2022: co-supervision  MSc project Olivia Weis, FU Berlin (main supervisor: PD Dr. Franz Hölker). Thesis title: "Influence of different lamp types on ground beetles".

06/2021 – 10/2022: main supervision BSc project Alina Filipp, HU Berlin, on effects of artificial light on community composition in web-building spiders (German thesis title: "Der Einfluss von künstlichem Licht bei Nacht (ALAN) auf die Artenzusammensetzung und Netzgröße von Radnetzspinnen, sowie deren Abstand zur Lichtquelle.").

06/2021 – 10/2022: main supervision BSc project Anna Slopianka, HU Berlin. Thesis title: "Trait-environment relationships in web-building spiders under varying levels of artificial light at night".

06/2020 – 09/2021:  co-supervision BSc project Sven Lemke, University Münster (main supervisor: Dr. David Ott). Thesis title: "Analysis of efficiency of light traps for sampling aquatic insects with varying distance from a waterbody". 

05/2017 – 04/2018: main supervision BSc project Joshua Leibrock, HU Berlin. Thesis title: “Maternal effects on individual-level variation in growth and behaviour in a feral guppy population in Germany”

06/2016 – 02/2017: main supervision research project Miriam Dominguez Rodriguez and Jaeug Choi (MSc Fish Biology, Fisheries & Aquaculture, HU Berlin). Project title: “Individual variation in behaviour and feeding rates of convict cichlids (Amatitlania nigrofasciata) at optimal and suboptimal temperatures”

03/2016 – 03/2017: co-supervision MSc project Juliane Lukas, HU Berlin; (MSc Fish Biology, Fisheries & Aquaculture, HU Berlin; main supervisor: Dr. David Bierbach). Thesis title: "Behavioural adaptations of a feral guppy population (Poecilia reticulata Peters, 1859) to temperature gradients in thermally polluted freshwaters in Germany”

07/2015 – 03/2017: co-supervision PhD project Yuanheng Li, Uni Göttingen & iDiv Leipzig; (main supervisor: Dr. Björn Rall). Thesis title: “Feeding interactions and their relevance to biodiversity under global change”

last updated 2023-11-14