The general topic of my research is the formation of planets as well as the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planets. More specifically, I am working on the dynamics of solid particles in these disks and how they grow towards planets.

Young stars and the disks around them are built up from interstellar matter which contains only very small, at most micrometer-sized dust particles. This small dust is the material out of which planets form. However the mechanisms which lead to the growth along over 45 orders of magnitude in mass are still poorly understood. The aim of my work is to understand how grains can grow from small to large and how they are distributed and transported in the disk.