I am a behavioural ecologist with a strong interest in the determinants and fitness consequences of the strategies that individuals apply to acquire resources, mates, and social allies in group-living animals. I am fascinated by how individual decisions and life histories generate complex patterns and processes at the level of social groups and populations, such as collective dispersal and social conventions, and how these may shape power dynamics within and between the sexes. For this, I primarily use empirical data on free-ranging spotted hyenas from the Ngorongoro Hyena Project in Tanzania which I co-direct with Oliver Höner (Leibniz-IZW, Berlin) since 2020. My current work explores two main topics: (i) the impact of demographic and kinship dynamics on social conventions and (ii) the eco-evolutionary drivers of power inequalities and dominance styles in social mammals.