14 January 2026

I am an ecologist and evolutionary biologist based at the University of Basel, Switzerland. My research asks how broad patterns of biodiversity emerge across space, time, and different parts of the tree of life. To find the drivers of these large-scale patterns, I work with a range of study systems, from terrestrial vertebrates to human cultural and linguistic diversity. I combine data-driven statistical analyses with process-based models, including agent- and individual-based approaches, to link simple rules and mechanisms to the complex patterns we observe in nature. In parallel with this work, I am interested in the philosophy of science in ecology: why we prefer simple models (and when we do not), how we justify our choices, and how we make progress when different models can explain the same natural phenomena.

Keywords: Macroecology, Macroevolution, Biogeography, Geographical Ecology, Theoretical Ecology, Mechanistic Modelling, Biodiversity, Species Distribution, Vertebrates
 

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