Publications in scientific journals, Other publications, Projects

I am a tenured senior scientist and lecturer at the Department of Environmental Remote Sensing & Geinformatics at Trier University, Germany. I hold a diploma degree in Applied Physical Geography/Geosciences from Trier University, and since graduation I have been involved in the acquisition and coordination of various projects dealing with environmental processes. In particular, these focused on the domain of land degradation and desertification in the European Mediterranean as well as other parts of the world with similar ecosystems. I completed my PhD in 2005, which dealt with remote sensing-based monitoring of Mediterranean rangelands affected by grazing and fire and involved the quantitative analysis of Landsat-based time series (http://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/volltexte/2006/350/link). As a synopsis of our degradation-related research, Prof. Joachim Hill and me have jointly organized the 1^st International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Processing in the Assessment and Monitoring of Land Degradation and Desertification, major results of which have been condensed in a book publication in 2006.

 In recent years, I have extended my regional focus to countries of Southwestern Africa, where I coordinate different sub-projects of the German Ministry for Science and Education funded The Future Okavango and SASSCALinitiatives, which operate at the interface of the human and environmental domain. Here, I am particularly interested in combining quantitative remote sensing methods with time series analysis and change detection techniques to map processes of change. I strongly appreciate the interdisciplinary setting of these projects, which allows to relate identified trends to underlying drivers and proximate causes, or evaluate trade-offs in ecosystem services.

 Since 2007, I have a permanent position with the Department. I am involved in teaching of Bachelor- and Master-level courses on multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing, photogrammetry and geoinformatics. I am supervising Bachelor and Master these and serve the University through different committees and boards.