Staff

I am a doctoral researcher at the University of Potsdam and GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, currently working with Section 2.1 — Physics of Earthquakes and Volcanoes and the seismology community at GFZ.

My research sits at the intersection of environmental seismology, volcano geophysics, geomorphology, remote sensing, and computational Earth science, with a particular interest in how natural systems respond to extreme forcing and approach critical transitions.

My doctoral research is anchored on La Réunion Island, particularly the deeply dissected extinct stratovolcano Piton des Neiges, where I established and worked with a temporary broadband seismic network spanning major sectors of the massif and its cirques.

The observatory provides continuous seismic observations across contrasting elevations and geomorphic settings and captures the response of the volcanic landscape to rainfall, cyclones, gravitational processes, hydrological forcing, and seismic activity.

A major component of my current work focuses on the exceptional natural experiment provided by Cyclone Garance in February 2025 and the months of observations before and after the event.

I investigate how extreme meteorological forcing translates into erosion, mass wasting, landscape reorganisation, and changes in the physical state of volcanic terrain.

Current and developing research directions include:

• detection, location and classification of seismically recorded geomorphic events;
• the response of the Piton des Neiges cirques to extreme rainfall;
• interactions among rainfall, groundwater/hydrological processes, erosion and seismic observables;
• temporal changes in the seismic properties of the landscape, including ambient-noise and relative seismic-velocity approaches;
• whether extreme events leave a persistent geophysical memory or altered susceptibility in the landscape;
• comparative analysis of  volcanic systems of contrasting age, structure and activity;
• integration of seismic observations with remote sensing, meteorological, hydrological and geomorphological information.

A broader objective is to understand how the internal state of a volcanic landscape controls its response to external forcing, from ordinary rainfall to extreme cyclones and, in active volcanic systems, to interactions between hydrological and magmatic processes.

Alongside the field-based research, I am developing an original computational framework for seismic event detection, onset identification, location and classification.

The work combines conventional and advanced seismological approaches with ideas from information theory, statistical change detection, complexity analysis, optimisation and bio-inspired computation.

Rather than treating detection, location and classification as isolated tasks, I am interested in extracting the spatiotemporal anatomy of evolving geophysical processes and identifying changes in system state that may precede major transitions.

The methods are being developed and benchmarked against manually curated reference catalogues and heterogeneous geomorphic events, with an emphasis on uncertainty, robustness and independent validation.

La Réunion is both a principal field site and a natural laboratory for broader questions.

My developing research programme uses Piton des Neiges and Piton de la Fournaise to investigate how volcanic-edifice age, structural state, hydrology and landscape evolution influence the way environmental forcing is transmitted through the Earth system.

Longer term, I am interested in extending these comparisons to other volcanic islands and monitored volcanic systems in order to distinguish site-specific behaviour from more general geophysical principles.

The Réunion work has involved collaboration and support from partners including the Université de La Réunion / OSU-Réunion, Parc national de La Réunion, GFZ researchers, and local scientific and institutional partners.

My present work is being developed within GFZ Section 2.1 — Physics of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, with increasing integration of seismology, volcano geophysics and remote-sensing perspectives.

My academic background is in Physical Geography and Earth Science, with graduate training in Sweden and previous scientific work in Switzerland, alongside studies in teaching and psychopedagogy.

I am particularly interested in research problems that cross conventional disciplinary boundaries—where physical processes, complex systems, environmental change and computational pattern recognition can be brought together to understand an evolving Earth.