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My Next Chapter: Akademischer Rat auf Zeit
I’m excited to share a professional update. I’ve recently transitioned from the Chair of Hydrology at the University of Freiburg to the Chair of Near-Surface Geophysics—remaining within the same university, but taking on a new role as Akademischer Rat auf Zeit (comparable to an Assistant Professor). This move marks an important step in the evolution…
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PhD-Update: Thesis succesfully defended
3.5 years after starting my PhD in the SSF Research Unit, supervised by Markus Weiler and Jeffrey McDonnell, I successfully defended my thesis on the 14.11.25. I am super happy with the scientific work produced in that time and the disputation was a nice chance to present and defend my work in front of my…
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PhD Update: Thesis Submitted & 2 Preprints
Over the past few months, I’ve been a bit quiet on here — and for good reason: I was wrapping up my PhD thesis! I’m excited (and relieved) to share that it’s now officially printed and submitted On top of that, I managed to submit two new research papers, both now available as open-access preprints:…
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EGU 25 Poster & Sessions
Looking forward to an exciting #EGU25! I’m co-convening a few sessions and presenting a poster—come by and say hi: Poster – Tracing Subsurface Stormflow: Insights from Sprinkling ExperimentsMon, 28 Apr | 10:45–12:30 | Hall A, A.17 MacGyver Session – Innovative tools to observe the geosphereMon, 28 Apr | 14:00–15:45 | Hall A BUGS Session –…
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First research paper published!
My first research paper published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences! We build a device that automates a previously tedious manual process of analysing soil water isotope samples. The device is open source/hardware and the paper is open access. You can read it here: https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/525/2025/
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PhD Update: New Autosampler Setup in the Field!
Exciting Progress in the Field! This September, I finally set up my new evaporation-proof autosampler in my research catchment—and I’m thrilled to report it’s been running smoothly for over a month! This setup is a game-changer for stable water isotope research, as well as other water studies that rely on high-precision sampling. Currently, the autosampler…
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Sprinkling Experiments
In May, we ran sprinkling experiments on a hillside in Freiburg to observe how water moves beneath the surface during storms. We used special “heavy” water (Deuterium) to trace its path through the soil. At the final Watson Cost Action project conference, I shared our first findings: water traveled through the soil in just 20-40…
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WATSON short term scientific mission to Uni Bern
Thanks to a Watson Short Term Scientific Mission grant I was able to visit the institute of hydrology in the scenic city of Bern. During my stay at the group of Prof. Bettina Schaefli, Dr. Natalie Ceperley and I develop a sampling framework to assess preferential flow of meltwater and/or rain on snow. Better insights…
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Isotope Hydrology Course
Last week I took part in the “Isotope Hydrology” course from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. While it gave me an artificial jetlag by attending the course virtually from Germany, it was definitely worth the sleep deprevation. The course featured outstanding instructors like Jeff McDonnell, Ciaran Harman and Scott Jasechko to name just a few.…
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Video: How we analyse our soil samples
In my blog-post from February I showed how we take soil samples. Here is how we measure them: