Curriculum Vitae

Academic career

  • Since 2022.2: Director of the Natural History Museum (Naturmuseum) St.Gallen, Switzerland
  • 2019.3 – 2022.1: Head of collections & research, and curator of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum (Naturmuseum) in St. Gallen, Switzerland
  • 2018.10 – 2019.4: Professor of Geochemistry (interim), Ludwig-Maximillian University (LMU) in Munich, Germany
  • 2015.3 – 2018.8: Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow at ETH Zurich (group of Prof. Maria Schönbächler)
  • 2014.3 – 2015.3: Post-doc at CRPG-CNRS Nancy (with Prof. Bernard Marty)
  • 2011.6 – 2014.2: Post-doc at Lund University (with Prof. Birger Schmitz / Carl Alwmark)
  • 2007.4 – 2011.5: Graduate student at Earth Sciences, ETH Zurich (main supervisor of PhD thesis: Prof. Rainer Wieler; thesis defense: 31.03.2011)
  • 2001.9 – 2006.8: Undergraduate student of Physics (1 year), then Earth Sciences, ETH Zurich

Grants & Awards

  • 2016: Recipient of the Paul Niggli medal by the Swiss Society of Mineralogy and Petrology
  • 2014: Ambizione Fellowship from Swiss National Science Foundation
  • 2013: Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship (1 year, declined)
  • 2013: Grant from the Lund University strategy group for synchrotron light studies (6 months; together with C. Alwmark)
  • 2013: Visiting Scholarship. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA
  • 2012: Breakthrough Science Project Grant from Swedish Research Council (Co-applicant together with B. Schmitz; contributing main idea)
  • 2012: Visiting Scholarship. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA
  • 2011: Fellowship for Prospective Researchers from Swiss National Science Foundation (2 years)

Students & Teaching

  • Global Geochemical Cycles (Master, full term), FT 2018, LMU Munich
  • Geochronological Methods (Master, full term), FT 2018, LMU Munich
  • Geochemie (Bachelor, full term), FT 2018, LMU Munich (in German)
  • Main supervisor to former PhD student Amy Plant (ETH Zurich; 2015-2018)
  • Co-supervisor to PhD students Sanna Holm (Lund University; PhD defended successfully on December 2nd, 2016) and My Riebe (ETH Zurich; PhD defended successfully on March 3rd, 2016)
  • Introduction to the Solar System, planet formation and meteorites (Master, part term), FT 2012, Lund University
  • Our Origins in Deep Time (Introductory 2h lecture for prospective students of Geosciences), FT 2012, Lund University
  • Supervisor of two Bachelor of Science student projects at ETH Zurich (2009)
  • Astrophysics Practicum (Bachelor), ETH Zurich (2007, 2008 and 2009): Cosmic-ray exposure-age dating with meteorites

Instrument experience

  • Ultra-high sensitivity noble gas mass spectrometry (ETH Zurich, CH)
  • SEM-EDS (Lund University, SE, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA)
  • Synchrotron Radiation X-Ray-Tomography (Paul Scherrer Institute, CH)
  • Micro-CT scanning (Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA)
  • DMA (Direct Mercury Analyzer)(CRPG CNRS Nancy, FR)
  • FIB (Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, D; Argonne National Laboratory, USA; Lund Nanolab, SE)
  • NanoSIMS (Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, D)
  • MC-ICP-MS (ETH Zurich, CH; CRPG CNRS Nancy, FR)

Public talks, invited talks & Seminars

  • 8. February 2024: Winter School at Les Houches on “Small bodies of the Solar System and their link with extraterrestrial samples” (O. Groussin). Cosmogenic exposure ages.
  • 17. January 2024: Erfreuliche Universität: Meteoritenabend im Palace (R. Bossart). Meteoriten – Boten aus den Tiefen von Raum und Zeit (in German; presented by J. Eschrig)
  • 29. November 2023: Allerstern Gönneranlass (A. Nakhostin). 100 Milliarden (in German).
  • 7. November 2023: FDP St.Gallen Morgenstamm (E. Zwicky Mosimann). Der Mensch, das Universum und die Zukunft des Naturmuseums St.Gallen (in German).
  • 23. May 2023: Lyceumclub St.Gallen (C. Fauquex). Meteoriten – Botschafter aus Zeit und Raum (in German).
  • 5. May 2023: Naturmuseum Olten, Jugend & Wissenschaft (J. Wunderlin). Spuren aus dem All (in German).
  • 21. April 2023: Schloss Dottenwil (A. Zwickl). Die wundersame Reise eines aussergewöhnlichen Steins vom Jurameer nach Wittenbach (in German).
  • 7. November 2022: Naturforschende Gesellschaft Solothurn (P. Flückiger). Meteoriten – Botschafter aus Zeit und Raum (in German).
  • 18 May, 2022: Astronomische Gesellschaft St.Gallen (M. Schmidt). Meteoriten (in German)
  • 12. April, 2022: Mineralogischer Verein St.Gallen (P. Heer). Lange Zeiten (in German)
  • 4. November 2020: Kinderuniversität Winterthur (E. Dumont). Meteoriten – Steine aus dem Weltall (in German)
  • 24. September 2019: DBI-Fachforum Energiespeicher, Berlin (M. Henel). Energie- und Gasnutzung im Weltall (in German)
  • 11. March 2019: Naturforschende Gesellschaft Schaffhausen (D. Hänggi). Rohstoffabbau im Weltall (in German)
  • 29. November 2018: focusTerra (U. Kastrup, G. Grün). Kollision im Weltall (in German)
  • 6. November 2018: Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, Seminar Volcanology, Petrology & Geofabrics (U. Küppers, D. Dingwell): Extraterrestrial chromite in sediments: tracer of a violent past
  • 1. September 2018: Lange Nacht der Museen Zürich – focusTerra (U. Kastrup, G. Grün). Kollision im Weltall (in German)
  • 15. March 2018: Winter School in Les Houches on “Volatile elements in the solar system” (Y. Marrocchi): Noble gases in the solar system.
  • 17. May 2017: SEG Student Chapter ETH (S. Rouwendaal): Asteroid Mining
  • 9. March 2017: Jahrestagung der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft St. Gallen (T. Bürgin): Der Grosse Knall oder wie die Erde zu ihrem Mond kam (in German)
  • 26. Januar 2017: Fachtagung “Energie Umwelt Zukunft”, Leipzig: Der Weltraum – Energielieferant der Zukunft? (in German)
  • 1. December 2016: Workshop: Impact Cratering and Beyond (C. Alwmark, S. Alwmark-Holm): A tale of clusters: No resolvable periodicity in the terrestrial impact cratering record
  • 18. November 2016: Swiss Geoscience Meeting 2016, Invited Talk (C. Heinrich, A. Gilli, S. Pilet): Meteorites and micrometeorites from sediments – identification and characterization using noble gases
  • 27. October 2016: Cosmochat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (M. Schönbächler): Exoplanets: how we finally learned that planets are common
  • 24. May 2016: Sächsischer Rohstofftag 2016, Dresden Extraterrestrischer Bergbau – reale Aufgabe oder Science Fiction? (in German)
  • 11. February 2016: Cosmochat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (M. Schönbächler): Basic Orbital Mechanics and the Delivery of Meteorites
  • 6. January 2016: Seminar series “BodenSchätzeWerte”, focusTerra, ETH Zurich (B. Gutbrodt & G. Grün): Weltraumrohstoffe – Illusion oder Zukunftsperspektive? (in German)
  • 19. August 2015: Goldschmidt 2015, Invited talk (T. Magna): Hg isotopes at the K-Pg boundary
  • 7. May 2015: Isochat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (M. Schönbächler): Looking for Veritas: Recovering extraterrestrial dust from an asteroid collision in the Miocene
  • 24. November 2014: Séminaire interne, CRPG CNRS Nancy, France (E. Füri): Cosmic-ray exposure ages of Hayabusa grains
  • 21. May 2014: Seminar Planetary Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland (I. Leya): Sampling the Kuiper belt
  • 20. Feburary 2014: Isochat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (M. Schönbächler): Do nuclear decay rates really decrease with increasing distance from the sun? What meteorites can tell us
  • 11. December 2013: Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz (U. Ott): He, Ne analysis in tiny extraterrestrial samples: From Ordovician fossil (micro)meteorites to Hayabusa
  • 22. November 2013: CRPG CNRS Nancy (B. Marty): Was Theia an icy object? Isotopic constraints on the Giant Impact
  • 30. January 2013: Isochat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (M. Schönbächler): Determining the petrologic type of a fossil meteorite: how, and why
  • 8. November 2012: C3 Seminar Series Talk, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA (F. Cisela): The how and why of determining the petrologic types of fossil meteorites
  • 28. April 2012: 4th German Meteorite Colloquium, Kiel, Germany (R. Bartoschewitz). Fossile Meteoriten und der Mutterkörper der L Chondriten
  • 8. December 2011: Lund Astronomy Seminar, Lund, Sweden (A. Johanson). Tracing Collisions: How meteorites help us understand the formation of the Moon, the dynamics of asteroid families and the evolution of life
  • 6. October 2011: Lund Geology Seminar, Lund, Sweden (V. Vajda). Light Noble Gases …and some interesting things to do with them in cosmochemistry & meteoritics

Memberships & Service

I am a member of the Meteoritical Society (since 2007), the European Association of Geochemistry (since 2015), and the Europlanet Society (since 2019).

I am the editor of meteoriteorbits.info, a website listing all known meteorites with “photographic” orbits (2017 – present).

I have been a reviewer for Nature Geoscience, Nature Communications, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, Geochemical Journal, the National Geographic Society and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.