I am Professor of History, especially Historical Geography, at Stockholm University, and in addition Associate Professor of Physical Geography at the same university.

My current research interests range from the link between past climate variability and historical harvest yields, the effect of plague outbreaks on the history of European building activity, past climate variability and extremes to socio-political aspects of historical food (in)security. I am an experienced university teacher and I am also actively engaged in popular science and public outreach activities. I frequently gives popular science lectures and makes contributions to media, and I am the author of five popular science books.

In 2022 I was by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities awarded the Rettig Prize for “interdisciplinary works concerning climate and diseases in a long-term perspective that demonstrate the importance of humanistic and historical perspectives on crucial contemporary issues”. In 2016 I was awarded the Clio Prize for my “ability to give well founded and pedagogic overviews of the big courses of events of the past” and for “delivering new scientific knowledge to a wide audience”.

I spent time between 2017 and 2019 as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge, Universität Bern, the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) and the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. I have close research collaborations across Europe and in China.