PhD Students

PhD Student

My multidisciplinary geoscience research explores how soil organic carbon, soil inorganic carbon, and gypsum interact to shape biogeochemical processes in drylands, using stable isotopes, VNIR spectroscopy, and ion chromatography.

✉ allaguiw94(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

My research focuses on understanding soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics and mitigation of agricultural GHGs emission using isotopic techniques. The aim is to develope climate-smart agriculture practices that improve soil fertility and reduce GHG emissions.

✉ sobia.bibi(at)ecosystem-research.at

PhD Student

✉ giorgia.cantini(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

✉ sean.darcy(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

✉ barira.shoukat(at)ecosystem-science.at

PhD Student

In my PhD project I am investigating N-cycling in soils with a focus on nitrous oxide (N₂O) production and consumption. My goal is to contribute to our understanding of the drivers of soil N₂O emissions.

✉ nathalie.heldwein(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

I explore how long-term (>70 years) nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium deficiencies shape arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi communities and plant–fungal interactions in a managed grassland.

✉ kian.jenab(at)ecosystem-science.at

PhD Student

I am currently focusing on soil microbial necromass biomarkers, particularly extracellular polysaccharides (EPS), and their roles in carbon metabolism and allocation strategies of soil microorganisms under long-term warming.

✉ tao.li(at)ecosystem-science.at

PhD Student

My research focuses on high-throughput methods to quantify microbial carbon allocation and to elucidate how bacteria with contrasting growth strategies adjust carbon use under varying temperatures and glucose availability.

✉ yuhua.li(at)ecosystem-science.at

PhD Student

I am an ecologist passionate about permafrost soils, aiming to understand how microbial communities shape ecosystem functions in the cold and how they respond to rapid transformations in the warming polar regions.

✉ victoria.sophie.martin(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

My research tries to improve our understanding of how soil microbes interact to decompose soil organic matter, and how this process is influenced by the availability of easily degradable substrates.

✉ moritz.mohrlok(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

I investigate the microbial catabolism of abundant plant-derived sulfolipids (SQDGs) in soils using stable-isotope tracing, high-resolution mass spectrometry, and meta-omics techniques to quantify related sulfur fluxes, link them to soil gross sulfur mineralization, and understand their role in soil sulfur cycling.

✉ clara.priemer(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

✉ christian.ranits(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

Soil, often dismissed as dirt, is in fact Earth's most biodiverse ecosystem. My research interests focus on uncovering how climate extremes and contaminants reshape microbial life and biogeochemistry, and their consequences for ecosystem functioning.

✉ cornelia.rottensteiner(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

I study lipidomics across the soil food web, combining Orbitrap UHPLC-HRMS and computational annotation with quantification to discover biomarkers linking microbial and plant communities to ecosystem functions and climate responses via reproducible mass-spectrometry pipelines.

✉ rahul.samrat(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

✉ philipp.spiegel(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

Life as a soil microbe is never boring – there are drastic environmental changes like rain and drought, freezing and heat waves, rhizodeposition and starvation. I’m investigating how microbial communities respond to these perturbations, and how these responses shape soil function.

✉ thayer.taft(at)univie.ac.at
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PhD Student

My research focuses on soil nutrients and biogeochemical cycles, exploring how essential biotic and abiotic soil properties influence nutrient diffusion fluxes and how these factors interact with one another.

✉ min.wen(at)univie.ac.at

PhD Student

✉ zhiyuan.xu(at)ecosystem-science.at