Dr. Boxleitner works with macrobotanical material from early Holocene cave sites in Central Asia, Europe, and the Caucasus region. Using plant macrofossil analyses, she studies human-environmental interactions in the past, searching out the origins of agriculture through ongoing projects in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Malta.

Before defending her Ph.D. at Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany, Dr. Boxleitner studied interactions between plants, animals, and climate at the Senckenberg Research Station of Quaternary Palaeontology in Weimar, Germany. She also holds a double MSc in polar and marine research from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and Saint-Petersburg State University.