My research projects focus on understanding how geodynamics, climate and life interact during major crises. I combine transdisciplinary datasets with models to determine the cause and consequences of these crises. Geodynamic, environmental and fossil data are gathered to reconstruct past geographies of our Earth and compared to climate models (see recent ERC project MAGIC Monsoons in Asia caused Greenhouse-Icehouse Cooling).

I work on the India-Asia collision region at large, including widely different geological and ecological environments such as the subarctic steppe of Central Asia or the tropical monsoonal forests of Southeast Asia. This region combines some of the most biogeographically diverse and tectonically active areas on Earth, as it straddles across the highest mountains and plateaus resulting from a complex geodynamic history throughout Phanerozoic times.