Research

My research focuses on human-nature connections in time and space. I study these relationships across various scales and levels: from local to global, and from the past into the future. My research areas include (oceanic) islands, cities, agroecological landscapes, continents, and sometimes the entire globe.

Questions that drive my research are: what is the relative contribution of human and environmental factors in shaping biodiversity patterns, and why (and to what extent) do biodiversity and cultural diversity coincide spatially?

These questions cannot be addressed from the perspective of a single discipline. Therefore, I collaborate with people from across the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities. In terms of methods, I generally use open source geospatial approaches (e.g. GIS, geocomputation, mapping).

With my research I hope to contribute to a shift from the one-sided focus of ‘human impacts on biodiversity’ towards a more nuanced relational approach called ‘biocultural geography’.