Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Sustainability transformation is both my primary field of research and my long-standing passion. As a sustainability scientist, I advocate for an academia that takes its responsibility as a transformative force seriously – in its content, methods, strategies and ethics. This commitment to societal impact is driven by the urgency of our times, marked by existential ecological, economic and social crises. My academic roots lie in natural sciences, ecology and conservation in the 1980s and 1990s; over time, I have expanded into economic and spatial sciences. Today, my work focuses on transformative, transdisciplinary research and transition management – developing theoretical foundations for change and identifying concrete domains and leverage points for necessary transformations on the ground. My work is rooted in system- and ecosystem-based concepts, particularly Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS). I apply these frameworks to resilience design and sustainability transformations in communities, cities and regions, as well as in value and supply networks within circular, sustainable socio-economic systems. I invite fellow researchers, practitioners and students passionate about sustainability to connect and collaborate – for real-world impact.
As Speaker and Scientific Lead of SINS – Sustainable Infrastructures, Networks and Systems I help build and steer a transdisciplinary platform for systemic sustainability transformation. SINS works through three complementary lenses: infrastructures as the material, digital, technical and institutional foundations of societal provision; networks as relational structures of actors, data, logistics, value creation and cooperation; and systems as social-ecological-technological configurations in which material flows, technologies, governance, markets, practices and ecological boundaries interact. At its core lies the Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) perspective. SETS enables us to integrate logistics, mobility, urban and industrial transformation, circular economy, energy and material flows, digitalisation, AI, governance and participation — without reducing transformation to a single sector or silver-bullet technology. It also keeps the critical questions in view: where do emerging technologies open transition pathways, and where do they create dependencies, rebound effects, lock-ins or vulnerabilities? SINS is deliberately built as a project-capable research commons: an open yet structured space where competences from the ZLV, UDE, the University Alliance Ruhr, regional co-creation and lab structures, practice partners and international collaborators converge around shared system challenges. Current focus lines include Industrial Sustainability, urban-digital transformation systems, circular and resilient value networks, sustainable urban metabolism and Circular Deconstruction Systems. Our ambition is to translate system-oriented sustainability science into collaborative projects, strategic funding architectures, lab and collaboratory formats, international partnerships and lasting impact. If you are interested in working at these intersections and between research, practice and transformation — feel free to reach out. Let’s talk.
With the reorganization of the research focus Urban Systems and the creation of an inter- and transdisciplinary scientific coordination, the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) acts with a Joint Centre Urban Systems (JUS). In addition to logistics, mobility, urban supply, smart city strategies, sustainable urban development and urban future narratives, the broad profile also includes many other growing fields of expertise that contribute to a system view for future urban systems in strong academic and practice-oriented networks.