Sachse and his team do not only work within Germany but also worldwide. Their research takes them to Mexico, Africa and the Himalayas. “Tropical regions are important for us because there is a lot of water in the atmosphere, and we expect stronger changes in the hydrological cycle there.”
Dirk Sachse studied geology in Jena. Although he was interested in natural sciences rather early, he did not have a clear idea about his professional development as a child. His “appetite” for it came only while “eating”. “I had no idea when I began my studies that there was something like what I am doing now.” Traveling to the USA and Latin America, visiting national parks and the phenomenon of volcanos fascinated him so much that he turned to geology. During his studies, he was fascinated how climatic processes shape the earth’s surface and how sediments from the past offer clues about the climate of that time. He wanted to understand climate changes. He worked for his PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. “There were always people who gave me the opportunity to work on completely new topics,” Sachse says. Born in Halle, he definitely wanted to go abroad after his PhD. His scientific work since, has also taken him to Boston and Seattle.
Since 2009 Sachse has led the Emmy Noether Research Group Paleohydrology at the Institute for Earth and Environmental Sciences, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The geologists in his team study past climate changes on the continents throughout the more recent geological history – with a special focus on the Holocene (roughly the last 11,000 years). Sachse decided to work at Potsdam because of the terrestrial working groups there as well as good analytical facilities because he needs rather complex laboratories and analytical instrumentation for his analyses. “I do not know of many other places in Germany where I could work in such an environment,” he says.

Research Interests:
My research is aimed at understanding the variability of biogeochemical cycles over different timescales (101 to 106 years), as the basis of life, human societies and ecosystems.
In particluar I am interested in the mechansims and consequences of short-term changes to the hydrological cycle, and the influence of surface processes (erosion, riverine transport, mass wasting) and tectonics (mountain range uplfit, earthquakes) on the short-term and long-term development of the carbon cycle.I apply and develop organic geochemical methods and use molecular and isotopic information to detect changes in these cycles and quantify fluxes.

Research Boards and Committees:
Chair of the INTIMATE (INtegrating Ice core, MArine and TErrestrial records) network (2019 - today)

Awards:
2018 - ERC Proof-of-concept grant (European Research Council)
2015 - ERC Consolidator grant (European Research Council)
2014 - Isotope Prize of the Karleugen-Habfast-Foundation
2009 - Emmy-Noether Excellence Grant of the DFG
2005 - Alexander von Humboldt Posdoc fellowship