I am the Head of the Personality Research Unit at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories in Bamberg and, as of October 2024, also serve as a Honorary Lecturer within the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast.

I completed my PhD in 2013 at Humboldt University Berlin and as a fellow of the International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course (IMPRS LIFE). Prior to joining QUB in April 2022 as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Social and Personality Psychology, I was a Senior Researcher within the Biological Personality Psychology group at the University of Göttingen.

As a psychological scientist, I am fascinated by the complex interplay of personality and social relationships. I study how people navigate these relationships in everyday life and in relation to how they see themselves and others. As such, my research programme cuts across the psychology of interpersonal relationships, personality psychology, and psychological assessment/psychometrics.

I have worked on the conceptualization and measurement of narcissism as a personality trait and its consequences in interpersonal relationships, and the effects of steroid hormones on motivation and behavior, in particular in the context of ovulatory cycle effects and hormonal contraception. Employing prospective longitudinal designs and multi-national survey data, my latest work has centred on ideal partner preferences and the role of these preferences for relationship development and wellbeing. I also have an emerging programme of research centring on non-normative life and relationship choices and I currently study how people navigate communication around those choices. 

On the methodological side, I put an emphasis on research that is robust, transparent, and highly collaborative in nature. Employing state-of-the-art study frameworks such as the open source software formr, I am particularly passionate about the dissemination of research designs for the study of close relationships.  

I have been a teacher of psychology for more than a decade. Previously, the lion's share of my teaching focussed on interindividual differences/personality psychology, the psychology of interpersonal relationships, developmental psychology, psychological assessment, and applied research methods.

I particularly enjoy teaching research methods from a practical and highly contexualised perspective. My B.Sc. module "Research in Personality Psychology" was awarded a university-wide best teaching award at the University of Goettingen in 2016, and nominated for a state-level award, the Science Award Lower Saxony in the category “Teaching”, in 2019.

During my time at QUB, I have contributed to the following modules:

- PSY1009: Introduction to Psychological Methods