Research Projects

My scientific background is in organic matter remineralization in permeable shelf sediments with a focus on the role of pore water exchange. Currently my main interests are in the field of ocean observation to address global change effects on ecosystem function with emphasis on benthic biogeochemistry. Working as a service scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute | Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, a lot of my work focuses on project management and coordination tasks in support of scientific excellence. I contribute/contributed to several current and past projects that aim to improve ocean observation capacities in terms of instrumentation, development of protocols and best practices, and provision of access to infrastructures and data products (H2020 AtlantOS, EU FP7 HYPOX & FixO3, HZG infrastructure program FRAM). Additional projects address ecosystem impacts of deep-sea mining and improvement of technologies for baseline observations and impact monitoring (EU FP7 MIDAS, JPIO MiningImpact).
In addition, I have a strong interest in the development and application of in situ instruments to address pore water and solute fluxes at the sediment-water interface, which led to the development of ‘Sandy’, a benthic chamber system for sands, and ‘Lance-a-Lot’, an instrument that combines sediment surface scanning with sensing of pore water flow tracers and oxygen.