I am a Research Fellow specializing in computational biology and physical anthropology. I have a PhD in Anthropology from University College London, focused on Late Pleistocene hominin cranial morphology, a BSc in Physics (Open University), and an MSc in AI (University of Leeds).

I am interested in mechanistic approaches to understanding human evolution. During my previous position as a Research Fellow at the Department of Evolutionary Biology (FWF Stand Alone funding), Universität Wien, I investigated whether bipedal locomotion creates an obstetrical dilemma in humans—a question that directly informs my planned work on Neanderthal sprint performance. I developed custom pipelines that integrate VICON motion capture data, MRI-derived anatomy, and OpenSim musculoskeletal modelling to generate personalized gait simulations. This work has demonstrated how pelvic morphology constrains biomechanical performance.

Research conducted during my FWF Lise Meitner Fellowship revealed that pelvic floor geometry—size, three-dimensional shape, and tissue thickness—disproportionately affects mechanical behaviour during childbirth, with findings forthcoming in PNAS. Earlier work as Principal Investigator for the Marie Curie-funded BIOMAN project examined how mandibular form influenced biomechanical responses to loading across Mesolithic, Neolithic, and modern populations, revealing that morphological robusticity reflects compromises between mechanical efficiency and other adaptive pressures.

Beyond academic research, I have collaborated with clinicians at Speising Hospital in Vienna, where I developed an AI-powered pipeline for extracting anatomical landmarks from medical images using computer vision foundation models. This work demonstrates my commitment to translating evolutionary insights into clinical applications while maintaining methodological rigor across biological and medical contexts.

At KLI, I will study how anatomical form relates to locomotor function in Neanderthals by integrating traditional morphological analysis with advanced computational modelling. My approach to creating subject-specific models without time-intensive 3D segmentation enables forward simulation of locomotion across different morphotypes—the precise approach required to test whether Neanderthal morphology represents an adaptation for sprint-intensive hunting versus other selective pressures.