Function and Responsibilities:

Post-doctoral researcher in the ERC Synergy Grant DEEP PURPLE

I use  metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches to study snow and ice biomes of the Greenland Ice Sheet. My goal is to provide insight in how supraglacial microbiome function changes over the course of ice algae blooms and research potential mutualistic relationships between eukaryotic snow and ice algae with their prokaryotic co-communties.

ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5246-2640

Research Interests:

My overarching research interests revolve around microbial ecology in soil and the cryosphere, and their geochemical environment. Recently, interkingdom interactions became key topic in my research where I am interested in strategies of microbes to mutually exploit an ecological niche.
I use metagenomic and -transcriptomic approaches in laboratory and field experiments and combine them with a diverse range of analytical techniques (quantitative PCR, wet chemistry, gas chromatography and soil structure analysis) to answer the who, where, how and how fast questions in microbial ecology. I have a particular interest in using newest development in sequencing technologies and bioinformatical analysis to gain a mechanistic understanding of microbial community function at a genome resolved level. 

Career:

Since 15/06/2022                Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bioinformatics at the German Research Center for Geosciences GFZ Potsdam

01/10/2018 – 31/10/2021    Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environmental Microbiology & Genomics at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon / University of Lyon.

01/10/2017 – 31/09/2018    Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environmental Microbiology & Genomics at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg.

Education:

01/10/2013 – 06/12/2016    PhD in Microbial Ecology
Ecole Centrale de Lyon / University of Lyon
Title of thesis: Bacterial and fungal involvement in nitrogen cycling and N2O production in soil
Supervisors: Dr. Pascal Simonet & Dr. Catherine Larose

29/04/2009 – 06/07/2015    MSc Applied plant Sciences
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)
Title of thesis: PhyloTrap – Separate capture of bacterial and fungal small subunit ribosomal RNAs by magnetic beads
Supervisor: Prof. Joseph Strauss

29/04/2009 – 15/07/2013    MSc Biotechnology
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)
Title of thesis: Nitrite production by controlled nitrification of liquid pig manure
Supervisor: Dr. Markus Gorfer

20/09/2004 – 24/04/2009    BSc Food and Biotechnology
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)
Title of thesis: Optimization of microbial fuel cells
Supervisor: Dr. Peter Holubar