Welcome to my website

I am a PhD candidate at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), working under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Giljum, and serve as a teaching and research associate at the Institute for Ecological Economics. My research centers on ecological and development economics, with a particular focus on the interplay between natural resources and socio-economic systems. To explore related complexities, I primarily apply econometric and statistical techniques.

My dissertation investigates the direct and indirect environmental and socio-economic impacts of mining activities. Leveraging granular geospatial data, I work on several key areas: (i) assessing the contextual risks of expanding mining operations into vulnerable ecosystems, (ii) examining the effects of mining on regional economic development and forest cover loss at the example of mining in Brazil, and (iii) tracing the local environmental impacts of mining activities along global supply chains from production to consumption.

Find my CV here and learn more about my current and past research projects below. You can also find my research on Google Scholar.

Selected work in progress

• “EU consumption’s hidden link to global deforestation caused by mining” with Stefan Giljum, Victor Maus, Laura Sonter and Manfred Lenzen, 2024. [WP]
• “Transient economic benefit and persistent forest loss: legacy of the Brazilian mining sector” with Victor Maus, Juliana Siqueira-Gay, Tamás Krisztin and Michael Kuhn, R&R Nature Communications, 2024.
• “Subnational Variations in the Quality of Population Health Data: A Geospatial Analysis of Household Surveys in Africa” with Andrew Tatem, Patrick Webb, Amelia Finaret, Valentin Seidler and more, R&R Nature Communications, 2023. [WP]

Journal articles

• “How to fuel an energy transition with ecologically responsible mining” with Laura Sonter, Stefan Giljum, Victor Maus, Stephen Northey, Tim Werner, Piero Visconti, James Watson and more, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120(35), e2307006120, 2023. [DOI]
• “Undermined efforts? The ambiguous role of mining jobs in a just transition” with Martin Cerny, Journal für Entwicklungspolitik 39(3/4), 113-138, 2023. [DOI]
• “A pan-tropical assessment of deforestation caused by industrial mining” with Stefan Giljum, Victor Maus, Nikolas Kuschnig, Michael Tost, Laura Sonter and Anthony Bebbington, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119(38), e2118273119, 2022. [DOI]
• “An update on global mining land use” with Victor Maus, Stefan Giljum, Dieison da Silva, Jakob Gutschlhofer, Robson da Rosa, Sidnei Gass, Mirko Lieber and Ian McCallum, Nature Scientific Data 9(433), 2022. [DOI]
• “Surge in global metal mining threatens vulnerable ecosystems” with Stefan Giljum, Anke Schaffartzik, Victor Maus and Michael Tost, Global Environmental Change 69, 102303, 2021. [DOI]
• “A global-scale data set of mining areas” with Victor Maus, Stefan Giljum, Jakob Gutschlhofer, Dieison da Silva, Michael Probst, Sidnei Gass, Mirko Lieber and Ian McCallum, Nature Scientific Data 7(289), 2020. [DOI]
• “Ecosystem services costs of metal mining and pressures on biomes” with Michael Tost, Diego Murguia, Michael Hitch, Stephan Lutter, Susanne Feiel and Peter Moser, The Extractive Industries and Society 7(1), 79-86, 2019. [DOI]

Selected other publications

• “Extracted forests. Unearthing the role of mining-related deforestation as a driver of global deforestation” with Moritz Kramer, Tobias Kind-Rieper, Stefan Giljum, Victor Maus and more, WWF, Berlin, 2023. [Report]