My research over the past 10 years has focused on different aspects of bat flight. During my masters program I started a collaboration between the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany and Lund University, Sweden and established a bat colony at Lund University. My doctoral dissertation, entitled “The trinity of energy conversion – kinematics, aerodynamics and energetics of bats flight” was a continuation of this collaboration. In 2011 I received my doctorate from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. I extended my research on bat flight during my post-doctoral work at Brown University in Providence, RI, focusing on flight energetics, muscle activity, and X-ray high-speed videography.

I just finished a post-doctoral associate and lecturer position at Iowa State University. As the “aerodynamicist on call” I was involved in several flight-related projects that include undergraduate research. Most of my interdisciplinary research projects involved the use and sometimes the design and fabrication of suitable wind tunnels, e.g., conservation-motivated research of butterfly flight, butterfly wing morphometrics, aerodynamics of leaf flammability and in collaboration with the Aerospace Engineering Department a study on the aerodynamics of seed dispersal.