Function and Responsibilities:
Head of section 4.1 " Lithosphere Dynamics"
Professor for "Dynamics of the Earth's Crust" at the Institut for Geological Sciences of the Freie Universität Berlin
Research Interests:
- Tectonics of plate margins and orogens
- Earthquakes and mountain building
- Deformation analysis
- Analogue modelling
Career:
- 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
- since 1992 Head of section at the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam
- since 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
- 2003-2018 Director Department "Geomaterials" at GFZ
- since 2004 Program speaker of GFZ’s research program
- 2007-2008 Guest professor at Caltech/Pasadena
- 2014-2015 Guest professor at Rice University, Houston
- Fall 2018 Guest professor at Sorbonne University, Paris
Education:
- 1988 Habilitation for Geology in Frankfurt
- 1982 Dissertation in Cologne
- 1980 Diploma in Geology at Cologne University
Projects:
Research Boards and 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
- former ILP-project COILS, Committee On Interdisciplinary Lithospheric Surveys
- 2003-2008 project TIPTEQ on megathrust earthquakes in Chile
- 2003-2008 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
- 2001-2003 member of editorial board of GEOLOGY
- 2003-2014 European Editor of TECTONICS
- member of council of several research programs
- 2001-2008 Dead Sea Center of the Minerva-Foundation
- 2002-2006 member of council of World Stress Map Project
- 2003-2014 chairman of council of Humboldt research centre of Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciencess
- since 2015 member of council of CIGIDEN, Chile’s National Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management
- 2004-2012 member of review board on Earth Sciences of German Science Foundation
- since 2004 Speaker of Helmholtz research programme ‘The changing Earth’ at GFZ Potsdam
- 2008-2013 member of Excellence Council of Free University Berlin
- 2010-2014 member of Think Tank of Helmholtz Association
- 2013-2018 member of board of Collaborative Research Center ‘Scaling Cascades’ at Freie Universität Berlin
- since 2016 Member of DFG-Grants Committee for on Collaborative Research Centers
Awards:
- 1980-1982 PhD-fellowship of the 'Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes'
- 1982-1983 Postdoc Fellowship of the Thyssen Foundation
- 1987 Hermann Credner-Award of the German Geological Society
- 1998 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Award 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
- 2014-2015 Wiess visiting professor, Rice University, Houston
- 2015 Gustav Steinmann Medal of DGGV
