I personally believe that – in retrospect – the exoplanet revolution will be seen as similarly important as the Keplerian revolution. For the first time in human history we have direct evidence for planetary objects revolving stars other than the Sun. So far, we just got a glimpse of the unimaginable diversity out there. The next decades will bring a multitude of new detection missions that will truly revolutionize our understanding. New kinds of theoretical models that robustly explain and predict these new observations are a key element in helping us to make sense of what we find.

I develop and apply theoretical and numerical tools in order to expand our understanding of the solar system planets to the vastly unexplored realm of the exoplanet population and – vice versa – learn from the extrasolar planet population to better constrain our view of early planetary evolution. What are the primary types of rocky planets? What kind of interiors and atmospheres do super-Earth planets develop? Are the different types of exoplanets a continuum, or do certain physical effects sub-divide them into distinct archetypes and classes?

The boundary conditions for atmosphere formation are set by the availability of major volatile compounds. 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 via the rate and form of volatile delivery during accretion.

My work on volatile delivery 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 of nascent planets? Ultimately, I seek to understand which chemical and geological characteristics these processes define for 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 directly 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 one of the main sources of information about the processes that shape planetary systems. Even though just(?) one incarnation within 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 solar system objects 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.

I aim 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.