The only life-harboring place in the galaxy we know about is our own home planet: Earth. How do you build such a world? Are we special or rather the cosmic norm? Already comparisons within the solar system show us that there are a number of characteristics that set Earth apart from its solar system siblings, be it the active carbon-silicate cycle, a clement and liquid water surface, an exceptionally large moon, and many more. Some of these characteristics are rooted in formation, and therefore we must unravel the poorly understood process that make such a world possible in order to understand what else is out there.

Doing this will require fundamental advances on multiple levels and across scientific disciplines. Therefore, I actively initiate collaboration and engage with like-minded researchers from astronomy, geophysics, geochemistry, atmospheric sciences, and more.

The chemical and physical evolution in its entirety is strongly influenced by the mixture and partitioning of major volatile elements available to a planet. The bulk of volatiles is delivered during formation and, therefore, whether a planet ends up as a gas or ice giant, ocean world, or desiccated desert planet is mainly controlled at what rate and in which form volatiles like water are delivered during accretion.

My work primarily concerns the nature and chemistry of the precursor material of rocky planets: When and how many volatiles are delivered to the bulk of the rocky body? What are efficient methods to lose them and do they partition into the core, mantle, or atmosphere, and thus determine the chemical and geological characteristics of surface conditions of a rocky planet?

The early surface environment of Earth resulted from the the most violent planetary event you can envision: the direct collision with a protoplanet, melting and evaporating the majority of mantle and resetting the clock on its internal geochemical evolution. The cooling of the resulting magma ocean and its internal dynamics crucially determined the mode and pace of core formation, and the build-up of the earliest atmosphere on Earth.

With my models I aim to better understand the interaction of such magma oceans on terrestrial bodies and the resulting consequences for their structure and long-term evolution. In astronomical terms, the 'afterglow' from such a cataclysmic event in young extrasolar systems may be detectable with near-future ground- and space-based telescopes, revealing a treasure trove of insights into the chemistry and interaction between surface magma oceans and their blanketing atmospheres.

Within your and my lifetime the solar system will remain our main source of information about the processes that shape planetary systems. Even though just(?) one incarnation of an uncountable myriad of planets, Earth and its unique history are right under our feet and directly accessible to observations and experiments. However, in the grand view of things it is the special features of the Sun, Earth and other planetary bodies that may bring us closer to an understanding of the true nature of the exoplanet census.

Which processes most strongly determined the current structure of the solar system? What does a planetary system, and rocky planet, need in order to sustain conditions suitable for prebiotic chemistry? By constraining the evolution and history of the solar system in the physical and geochemical parameter space I aim to single out the processes that we want to look out for in order to distinguish one planetary system from another and to find the ones that may resemble ours.

The Sun did not form in isolation. Rather, it was born together within many, perhaps thousands, of stellar siblings. All of these emerged from a giant molecular cloud core, and all of them interacted intensely with each other right after their birth: the aggressive UV environment and outflows from massive stars in young star-forming environments create hostile environments for their smaller siblings. But perhaps they also provided just the right conditions for systems such our solar system by truncating the disk, shutting off the mass flow from its outer part, or delivering crucial isotopes that in turn altered the structure of terrestrial planets.

My research tries to constrain and measure these processes in order to gain insights into the statistics and potential influences of planetary systems during their birth. These environmental constraints need to be taken into account to lead to a holistic understanding of what «shapes» the birth and life cycle of rocky worlds.