I’m a research associate at the University of Leipzig. In my research I work on the quantification of terrestrial photosynthetic activity by optical remote sensing approaches. My focus lies here on a signal called sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence which is emitted by plants during their photosynthetic light reactions. Because it is directly related to the photosynthetic process, sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence is a promising signal that might allow overcoming the limitations of traditional reflectance-based methods (e.g. surface greenness) for estimating terrestrial photosynthetic activity.

The research questions I in particular work on are:

• The scalability of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence from leaf to the canopy.
• The relationship between sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence and photosynthesis under different stress conditions (heat, drought, cold, nutrient limitations).
• The quantification of non-photochemical quenching by optical remote sensing approaches.