Karoline Volkmann studied British and American Studies, History, and Cultural Studies at universities in Bielefeld, Edinburgh, and Berlin. During her studies, she conducted several field research projects in museums in London and New York City, as well as at World Heritage Sites across the UK. She also contributed to the exhibition "Reinhart Koselleck und das Bild" (Reinhart Koselleck's Images of Time; Summer 2018). Following the successful completion of her Humboldt Research Track Scholarship, she began her doctoral studies at the Department of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt University of Berlin in the fall of 2024.

Her dissertation focuses on permanent natural history exhibitions and how "nature" is represented within them. In her master's thesis, Volkmann examined how historical taxidermies of mammals are used in natural history displays to stage animals in life-like ways. Her doctoral research builds on this foundation by further exploring the techniques, strategies, and politics of museum representation in natural history contexts.

In light of current discussions about the Anthropocene and humanity's relationship(s) to the non-human world, Volkmann investigates how human-nature relationalities are being reimagined in contemporary natural history museums. At the heart of her research lies the question of how the global problem of human-made climate change is expressed in local museums and, subsequently, how and where within these contexts a new, post-anthropocentric understanding of nature might find its place.

She explores this question about the potential of natural history museums in times of anthropogenic climate change through a transcontinental comparison of selected case studies, enabling a critical analysis of representations of "nature" across various geographical, political, and cultural (knowledge) landscapes.

Her doctoral project has been funded by an Elsa-Neumann Scholarship since April 2025.