Forest Ecology

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CV

Education and research

Since 2023

Adjunct Professor (ETH Zurich)

Since 2011

Deputy Group Head (Professorship of Forest Ecology)

Since 2010

Tenure position as Senior Scientist (ETH Zurich)

Since 2006

Head of the ETH tree-ring laboratory

Lecturer (dendroecology; field course in mountain forest ecology; applied statistics)

2006 – 2010

Senior Assistant ("Oberassistent") at the Professorship of Forest Ecology, Department of Environmental Systems Science (ETH Zurich)

2004 – 2005

Postdoc/Research Associate in the Biogeography Lab, Department of Geography (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Tom Veblen

Topics: Disturbance interactions (fire, insect outbreaks), dendroecology, drought, tree mortality, tree growth, spatio-temporal modeling

2003

Postdoc at the Professorship of Forest Ecology (formerly Mountain Forest Ecology, Department of Forest Sciences, ETH Zurich)

Topics: Forest decline, tree mortality

2000 – 2003

Ph.D. thesis (Dr. sc. ETH Zürich)

"Growth-dependent tree mortality: ecological processes and modeling approaches based on tree-ring data" at the Professorship of Forest Ecology (formerly Department of Forest Sciences, ETH Zurich)

Awarded with the medal of ETH Zurich

Advisor: Prof. Dr. H. Bugmann (ETH); Co-Advisors: Prof. Dr. F. H. Schweingruber (WSL), Prof. Dr. B. Pedersen (Dickinson College, USA)

Topics: Dendroecology, tree mortality, competition, statistical modelling

1999

Diploma thesis, University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland)

"Evaluating time series to reveal successional patterns"

Advisor: PD Dr. O. Wildi (WSL)

Topics: Vegetation dynamics, space-for-time substitution, multivariate analysis

1998 – 1999

Postgraduate studies in statistics (Faculty of Law and Economics Sciences, University of Neuchâtel)

1998

GIS modelling (internship) in the Landscape Modelling Group under the supervision of PD Dr. F. Kienast (WSL)

Diploma (Dipl. Natw. ETH)

1997

Diploma thesis (Master of Science), ETH Zurich

"Impacts of ungulates on the reforestation dynamics of three subalpine meadows in the Swiss National Park" (in German)

in the former Vegetation Dynamics research unit

Advisor: Dr. B. O. Krüsi (WSL), co-advisor: Dr. M. Schütz (WSL)

Topics: Dendroecology, ungulates, seedling microsites

1993 – 1998

Studies of systematic and ecological biology

(Plant systematics, plant ecology, phytosociology, mycology, plant pathology, nature conservation, entomology, microbial ecology) 

Department of Biology, ETH Zurich

Research interests

  • Dendroecology
  • Statistical modeling
  • Quantitative ecology
  • Tree demography
  • Tree mortality, forest decline
  • Temporal and spatial dynamics of forests 
  • Disturbance ecology (fire, insect outbreaks, blowdown, avalanches)
  • Climate effects (drought) on trees and forests; climate change
  • Tree competition
  • Phenology

Other professional experiences

2000, 2002

Teaching assistant for the course "Mountain forest ecology" at ETH 

1997 – 98

Laboratory works in the Chair of Biocompatible Materials Science and Engineering (ETH)

1996

Webpublishing "Virtual Classroom", Professorship of Plant Pathology (ETH)

1995 – 1996

Board member of the "Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein (ETH)", editor of the "NerV"

1994 – 1996

Field assistant (forest reserves), Professorship of Silviculture (ETH)

Commissions

  • Commission for Phenology and Seasonality (KPS); since 2021

Professional affiliations

  • Tree-Ring Society

Research skills

  • Dendrochronological and dendroecological methods
  • Applied statistics
  • Statistical computing software: R
  • GIS: ArcGIS

Editorial board in scientific journals

  • Associate Editor for Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (specialty section: temperate and boreal forests); since 2018
  • Member of Editorial board for Agricultural and Forest Meteorology; since 2019

Reviews

Reviews for scientific journals:

  • Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
  • American Journal of Climate Change
  • American Naturalist
  • Annals of Forest Science
  • Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research
  • Botanica Helvetica
  • Canadian Journal of Forest Research
  • Dendrochronologia
  • Ecological Applications
  • Ecological Bulletins
  • Ecological Modelling
  • Ecology
  • Ecology Letters
  • Ecosystems
  • Ekologija
  • Environmental Research Letters
  • European Journal of Forest Research
  • Forest Ecology and Management
  • Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
  • Frontiers in Plant Science
  • Functional Ecology
  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Global Change Biology
  • Global Ecology and Biogeography
  • iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry
  • Journal of Applied Ecology
  • Journal of Biogeography
  • Journal of Ecology
  • Journal of Forest Research
  • Journal of Vegetation Science
  • Nature
  • Nature Climate Change
  • Nature Communications
  • New Phytologist
  • Peer Community in Ecology
  • Plant Biology
  • PLOS ONE
  • Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Forstwesen
  • Science of the Total Environment
  • Tree Physiology
  • Tree-Ring Research
  • Trees - Structure and Function


Reviews for research proposals:

  • Austrian Science Fund, FWF (Vienna, Austria)
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (Bonn, Germany)
  • Federal Office for the Environment FOEN (Bern, Switzerland)
  • International Foundation for Science, IFS (Stockholm, Sweden)
  • Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space (Israel)
  • Le Studium Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies (Orléans, France)
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC (Ottawa, Canada)
  • Swiss National Science Foundation, SNSF (Bern, Switzerland)

Media

Languages

  • German
  • English
  • French
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