My specialty is astrophysics, astrobiology, and paleontology. The research I did in the past focused on ice ages on our planet Earth. That was in the time before the internet existed. You can hardly imagine how we managed it back then, but we did.

Now I mainly focus on research into mass extinctions on our planet in the past and the search for exoplanets. Two very different subjects, as it seems at first glance, but for me, there is a connection. That connection is life, the possibilities of life, and the habitability of a planet. What makes a planet habitable.

For the search for exoplanets, I work with data from TESS and NGTS. By the way, those who search for exoplanets are also called planet hunters. So when people ask me what I do, I say that I hunt planets. That is always a nice conversation starter.

TESS is the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It provides us with a vast amount of data with which we can search for planets outside our solar system, including planets that could support life.

NGTS, the Next Generation Transit Survey, is a ground-based search for exoplanets. The facility is located at the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

The research into the mass extinctions on Earth in the past is more in the realm of paleontology. Study and discover the causes, try to understand it.