Since 2018 I am employed as scientific staff at the Swiss Academies of Sciences, more explicitly in the Swiss Biodiversity Forum in Bern. Our main goals are to support biodiversity research and create a link between scientists and policy-makers in this field. Simultaneously, I am teaching at the Technical Highschool Rapperswil (HRS), covering lectures in “Landscape Ecology” and “Nature and Landscape Maintenance”.

At the Swiss Academies of Sciences my responsibilities range from writing a monthly newsletter on biodiversity research to investigating biodiversity-harming subsidies in Switzerland. With this we create quite an outreach and help policy-makers understand the relevance of this issue. My ambition is that more people grasp the fundamental implications of biodiversity loss and incorporate it in their daily choices.

During my PhD in conservation genetics at the ETH in Zurich and Postdocs in Berlin, Aberdeen and Zurich, I published a substantial amount of papers in renowned journals, such as New Phytologist. However, that is where my academic journey ended in the traditional sense and my career turned to my way more outreaching current positions, which have direct impact on society. I believe the experience I gained during an assignment at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) before starting my PhD, proved that I have expertise beyond conservation genetics which was essential for finding my current positions.