My interests
We live in unprecendented times, with the natural systems of our planet under more stress than ever before. I believe that probably within my lifetime, we (humanity) will either begin to find real solutions for sustainably sharing this planet with other creatures -- or we will head towards a fundamental reorganisation of social and ecological order.
The answers to the sustainability challenge are bound to be complex, and will require academic research from many fields, as well as concerted efforts from the rest of society. I am hoping that my work can contribute in some small way to help humanity reach a sustainable future. Most of my work focuses on human-modified landscapes because I believe that this is where the biggest challenges as well as the biggest opportunities lie. Although my own background is in ecology, I actively seek collaboration with other disciplines and stakeholders outside academia.
My background
I grew up in Germany, but I completed all my university education in Australia, at The Australian National University in Canberra. My Bachelor’s degree initially was a mix of geography, forestry and statistics. Towards the end, I became increasingly interested in landscape ecology, and ecology more generally. I completed my PhD in 2004, under supervision of Professor David Lindenmayer. My PhD focused on reptiles in two different human-modified landscapes – the Nanangroe grazing landscape, and the Tumut plantation landscape.
I then worked on a postdoc project for two years. During this time, I reviewed and synthesized existing datasets collected by David and his team, and I co-wrote a book on habitat fragmentation together with David.
From 2007 to 2010 I led the ecological component of the 'Sustainable Farms' project, which was funded through the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities Program. This project investigated regional-scale patterns of tree regeneration (and regeneration failure) in Australia's wheat-sheep zone.
In 2010 I was awarded a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award will fund five years of research on sustainable development trajectories for the Saxon region of Transylvania, Romania. The project is described in more detail on my project website, and occasionally there are employment opportunities within the project.
For my work in Romania, I will be based at Leuphana University Lueneburg, in northern Germany. I chose this host institution because Leuphana has a transdisciplinary sustainability initiative, and is a rapidly growing, highly innovative university. Many young professors are currently being appointed, making this a very exciting place to work at.
My research philosophy
My vision is to produce quality research that is useful to solve real-world sustainability problems. This means research could be very applied, or it might be more theoretical but make a contribution by helping people to re-think how sustainability problems are framed and addressed.
I believe in doing a reasonably small number of things well, rather than having a finger in every project out there. Similarly, I like to work closely with a reasonably small number of people, and I place a great emphasis on maintaining happy interpersonal relationships during collaboration. I particularly enjoy working with PhD students and postdocs, and strive to foster a productive, mutually supportive and happy research environment.