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I am a principal investigator funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the institute of ecology of the Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany). I’ll be starting as an Assistant Professor at the University of Utrecht in January 2024!
In December 2015, I received my PhD Degree in agricultural sciences and biological engineering from the University of Liège (Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Belgium). During my PhD, I worked on root-emitted volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their roles in belowground plant-plant interactions. Between 2016 and 2021, I worked in Prof. Vicky Temperton’s group on interactions between plants in grassland ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on the influence of priority effects during plant community assembly on ecosystem structure and functioning (particularly below the soil surface). |
Research interests
"Essentially, all life depends upon the soil. There can be no life without soil and no soil without life. They have evolved together." (C. Kellogg)
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I am a plant and chemical ecologist fascinated by plant-plant and plant-soil interactions. Also, I love roots!
My goal as a (root) researcher is to elucidate the mechanisms that moderate plant-plant and plant-soil interactions in natural and managed ecosystems, particularly in the rhizosphere of plants, and their implications for species coexistence, assembly and biodiversity in the context of global change. To accomplish this, I use a variety of methods, from conceptual synthesis to manipulative experiments in the field and under controlled environmental conditions, as well as phenotyping (incluging image analysis), metabolomic, and genomic approaches. |
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