Research Interests
Key Research Areas:
- Translational Stress and Resilience Studies
- Public Mental Health and Social Participation
- Developmental Psychopathology and Psychotraumatology
- Stress Conceptualization and Measurement
- Child Welfare and Refugee Populations
In previous research I focused on the biopsychosocial consequences of childhood adversities from an interdisciplinary, developmental, and life-course perspective. Mainly, I was involved in a longitudinal cohort study reassessing young adults previously placed out-of-home within the JAEL-study. During my early doctoral studies, I was able to acquire funding for the biomarker add-on study LOCO in which we measured several stress biomarkers (Hair Cortisol, Telomere Length, Inflammatory Markers).
In recent work, I am involved in two spin-off studies LOC-o-met and JAELred, focusing on DNA-methylation and oxidative stress processes within our care leaver sample, building up on the LOCO study. Currently, I expanded on previous work investigating data from epidemiological studies using data from German and the US population-based surveys by gathering population-based data on childhood neglect in Germany and by conducting secondary data analyses on population-based adversity and mental health data as part of the CT-Quest study.
In future research, I anticipate shifting my perspective from adversity- and pathology-oriented research towards investigating the multisystemic developmental origins of health and resilience across various developmental periods along the life-course. To do so, I moved my research base to the Jacob Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich to conduct research within large-scale prospective cohort studies. As such I will investigate data from the z-proso study, the Zurich Youth Survey, the Great Smoky Mountain Study, and potential other longitudinal cohort studies.