I grew up and studied in Germany before earning my PhD at Arizona State University with Dr. Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz, where I uncovered overlooked abiotic sources of nitrous oxide in Amazonian peatlands and showed that mineral-catalyzed chemistry likely made nitrogen oxides more abundant on the early Earth than previously thought.

As a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at Stanford with Dr. Anne Dekas, I turned to the uncultivated majority of microbes in extreme environments. I found that hot spring archaea rely on tungsten to conserve energy, attributed an elusive methane pathway to a novel methanogen, and measured gas fluxes in the hypersaline playas of Western Australia. I am also a Science Affiliate at the SETI Institute and Co-I on a NASA Exobiology project (PI Dr. Morgan Cable), where I culture extremophiles for ice-grain impact experiments that support future missions to icy ocean worlds.

Teaching and mentoring students, especially in the lab setting, has always been a great source of inspiration for me. I am particularly eager to support high school and community college students of diverse backgrounds to find career paths into the life and planetary sciences.