• Tectonics of plate margins and orogens
• Deformation analysis
• Analogue modelling

• IPOC - Integrated Plate boundary Observatory Chile
• TOPOMOD
• Geo.Sim
• THERMO-EUROPE
• TIPTEQ - megathrust earthquakes
• SFB 267 - central Andes
• DEKORP - North German basin
• CSAG - Earth surface processes

• 1988 Habilitation for Geology in Frankfurt
• 1982 Dissertation in Cologne
• 1980 Diploma in Geology at Cologne University

• 1980-1982 PhD student at Earth Sciences Department, Cologne University
• 1982-1983 Post-Doc at department of Earth Sciences at Münster University
• 1983 Assistant professor for Structural Geology at the Geological-Paleontological Institute in Frankfurt
• 1989 Associate professor for Structural Geology at the Institute for Geology in Würzburg
• 1992 Head of section at the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam
• 1994 Full professor for 'Dynamics of the Earth's Crust' at the Earth Sciences Department of the Free University of Berlin in conjunction with the position at the GFZ
• 2003 Director of department 'Geodynamics' at GFZ
• 2004 Program speaker of GFZ’s research program
• 2007-2008 Guest professor at Caltech/Pasadena

• 1980-1982 PhD-fellowship of the 'Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes'
• 1982-1983 Postdoc Fellowship of the Thyssen Foundation
• 1987 Hermann Credner-Price of the German Geological Society
• 1998 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Price of the German Science Foundation
• 1999 Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences
• 2001 Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences
• 2002 Member of Leopoldina Academy
• 2006 Member of Academia Europaea
• 2007-2008 Moore Scholar at Caltech, Pasadena, USA

Scientific committees

• 1993-1999 Vice-chairman of the DFG-priority program 'Orogenic processes - their quantification and simulation' by the German Science foundation
• 1994-1997 Project leader of the national German reflection seismic program (DEKORP; BMBF)
• 1997-2004 Speaker of the collaborative research program 'Deformation processes in the Andes' (funded by the German Science foundation)
• Principal investigator in several coordinated national and international projects (1998-2003 TRANSALP, since 1998 ILP-project COILS, Committee On Interdisciplinary Lithospheric Surveys; since 2003 project TIPTEQ on megathrust earthquakes in Chile; since 2003 project CSAG on system analysis of Earth surface processes;
• 1997-2004 Vice president of the Geologische Vereinigung
• 1998-2004 member of review committee of the Alexander v. Humboldt foundation
• since 2001 member of editorial board of TECTONICS, since 2003 European Editor
• since 2001 member of editorial board of GEOLOGY
• member of council of several research programs (since 2001 Dead Sea Center of the Minerva-Foundation; since 2002 member of council of World Stress Map Project; since 2003 chairman of council of Humboldt research centre of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences)
• since 2004 member of review board on Earth Sciences of German Science Foundation
• since 2004 Speaker of HGF programme ‘The changing Earth’ at GFZ Potsdam
• since 2008 member of Excellence Council of Free University Berlin