Curriculum

• 09/16: Doctorate degree in political science, title: "Beyond Panaceas: Assessing the Implementation and Performance of Participatory, Multi-Level Governance in European Water Resource Management"
• since 11/2015: research associate in the research project Leverage Points, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation
• 2011-2013: research associate in the DFG funded research project GoScaLE - Participatory Governance and the Impact of Scales on Democratic Legitimacy and Effectiveness
• 2011-2015: research associate in the ERC funded research project EDGE - Evaluating the Delivery of Participatory Environmental Governance using an Evidence-Based Research Design
• since 05/2011 working at the Institutefor Environmental and Sustainability Communication in the working group Governance, Participation and Sustainability
• 01/2011 Magister thesis: "Failing Aid? - a comparision of India's and Sweden's development co-operation with fragile states"
• 2008-2010 studying at Lund University, Sweden
  main study interests: international development, Africa's geography and culture, Globalisation and cultural transformations
• 2005-2011 studying at the University of Trier
  major: political science, minor: sociology, media science
  main study interests: International Relations, politics and policies of the European Union, international development
  attainment of the Certificate "European Studies" at the Centre for European Studies

Research interests

As a postdoctoral researcher in the project Leverage Points and team member of the research group on Governance, Participation, and Sustainable Development, my work focuses on the societal and spatial organization in sustainability policies. I am particularly interested in the way the configuration of governance structures, i.e. their integration vs. fragmentation, impact on the performance of the wider political regime, as well as the role of failure and decline in fostering institutional change.

In the context of the ERC-funded research project EDGE, I am concerned with the the opportunities and pitfalls associated with participatory and collaborative environmental governance. This is examined via mixed-methods design, comprising a comprehensive large-N case survey meta analysis, as well as small-n comparative and quasi-experimental case studies in the contexts of the EC Water Framework Directive and the EU Floods Directive.

I am interested in the multi-level nature of environmental governance, involving multiple concurring environmental and social scales. As member of GoScaLE, I examine the role that governance scales play in the (participatory) implementation of (environmental) regulatory policies in complex and nested multi-level systems. A particular focus of my work lies on those situations where environmental resources span over state or national boundaries.

Beyond my thematic focus, I have a strong interest in social science research methods, both qualitative and qualitative, as well as mixtures of these. Methods I use include, among others, (case survey) meta-analyses, statistical modeling, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), expert interviews and experimental approaches.