MACUMBA

Prof. Dr. Lucas J. Stal (WP1, Coordinator)

Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

lucas.stal@nioz.nl

Prof. Dr. Lucas Stal obtained his PhD in microbial ecology from the University of Groningen (Netherlands). He worked for 10 years at the University of Oldenburg (Germany) and 8 years at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) before becoming head of the department of Marine Microbiology of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Yerseke (now NIOZ). He is also professor in Marine Microbiology at the University of Amsterdam and is an advisor of the biotech company Algenol in Berlin. He is specialized in the ecology and diversity of cyanobacteria, other marine bacteria and microalgae, and known for his work on microbial mats and nitrogen fixation

Marcel van der Linden (Management Team)

Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

Marcel.van.der.Linden@nioz.nl

Marcel van der Linden is the MaCuMBA's financial project manager. He is one of the members of the Management Team which is involved in the finalcial and administrative management of the project. He supports both the scientific coordinator and the partners/consortium with all the financial issues related in executing this project. Marcel has experience on many FP7 and ERC projects in the role as financial coordinator.

Prof. Dr. Gerard Mujzer (WP2 leader)

University of Amsterdam (UvA)

g.muijzer@uva.nl

Prof. Dr. Gerard Mujzer is professor in Microbial Systems Ecology at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystems Ecology (IBED) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), visiting professor at the University of Milan (Italy), and guest scientist at the Delft University of Technology (Delft, The Netherlands). Before these positions, he was Head of the Molecular Ecology group at the MPI for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, Head of the Molecular Biological Laboratory at NIOZ (Texel, The Netherlands), and Associate Professor at the Department of Biotechnology of Delft University of Technology (Delft, The Netherlands). His research interests are microbial diversity and evolution, ecophysiology, systems biology, and bacteria involved in the sulfur and nitrogen cycle. Within his research he combines traditional microbiology with state-of-the-art ‘omics’-techniques.

Pr Gwenaelle LeBlay (WP3 leader)

University of Western Brittany (UBO)

gwenaelle.leblay@univ-brest.fr

Pr Gwenaelle LeBlay has a Professor position at the University of Brest (UBO). During the 16 years she spent in different laboratories in Europe (Switzerland, Germany, France) and Canada, she acquired a strong expertise in microbial physiology and ecology in different ecosystems. She recently directed her research to work on marine extreme environments, with the development of immobilized microbial communities from deep sea ecosystems to study microbial interactions during continuous cultures in bioreactors.

Daniel Vaulot (WP4 leader)

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) - Station Biologique de Roscoff

vaulot@sb-roscoff.fr

Daniel Vaulot is a senior scientist (DR) at CNRS and leads the Diversity of Plankton team focusing on the taxonomy, ecology and genomics small photosynthetic eukaryotes. He is also the Director of the RCC. His expertise is oceanic phytoplankton with a focus on the smaller size classes (picoplankton) : taxonomy, culture, diversity, genomics and metagenomics. His current work is focussed on the "green" phytoplankton, i.e. the one that is related to land plants in contrast to the "red" phytoplankton (diatoms, dinoflagellates). They are trying to determine the major groups composing the green phytoplankton, especially in open ocean waters, to isolate culture representative and to understand their physiology through culture experiments and transcriptomics approaches. Daniel is also responsible for the Roscoff Culture Collection which holds more than 3000 marine micro-organisms and is one of MACUMBA core collections.

Prof. Fergal O'Gara (WP5 leader)

University College Cork (UCC)

f.ogara@ucc.ie

Prof. Fergal O’Gara is emeritus professor of microbiology and director of the BRC, since its foundation in 1991. He received his PhD in 1974 and DSc in 1991. He was elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 2003 and has served as its Vice-President. He is former chair of EU training and mobility (TMR) panel and was joint vice-chair of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Panel on GMOs (2000-2006). He is a member of the International Board of Ambassadors of the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) and was a member of Irish Bioethics Council from 2003-2006. He runs a multidisciplinary research team in the BRC.

Prof. Francisco Rodríguez Valera (WP6 leader)

University Miguel Hernández (UMH)

frvalera@umh.es

Prof. Francisco Rodríguez Valera has been publishing important papers about microbial diversity since the mid-eighties and has been a pioneer in the application of metagenomics to extreme and marine (mostly deep oceanic) environments. Currently, he is the coordinating scientist for a long-term Spanish national excellence project CONSOLIDER MICROGEN directed towards establishing a strong and cutting edge microbial genomics community in Spain. Prof. Rodriguez-Valera is also an editorial board member for BMC journals, Archaea, PLoS One and Microbial Ecology.

Prof. Dr. Lone Gram (WP7 leader)

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

gram@bio.dtu.dk

Prof. Dr. Lone Gram obtained her PhD in microbiology from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (Denmark) in 1989. For the past 14 years, she has been a professor in aquatic microbiology and hygiene and is currently a tenured professor at DTU. She is also an adjunct professor of Center of Marine Biotechnology at University of Maryland. She has specialized in bacterial ecophysiology focusing on bacteria of aquatic (marine) origin. The past 10 years a key focus area has been bioactivity of marine bacteria such as Roseobacter, Pseudoalteromonas and Vibrionaceae and the possible biotechnological application of marine natural products. She is currently on the editorial board of Environmental Microbiology and has been an editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Prof. Gerard H Markx (WP8 leader)

Heriot-Watt University

G.H.Markx@hw.ac.uk

Prof. Gerard Markx is Professor of Bioprocessing in Heriot-Watt University. His main areas of expertise are the use of physics-based cell manipulation and characterisation techniques in biotechnology, and the development of technology for the creation of artificial microenvironments for cells. They use this expertise in the Macumba project to isolate and manipulate single cells, make microbioreactors for growing cells, make artificial microcolonies, measure cell growth and study cell-cell interactions.

Marieke Reuver (WP 9 leader)

AquaTT

marieke@aquatt.ie

Marieke Reuver has a background in Animal Science (MSc) from Wageningen University (the Netherlands). Currently, Marieke is AquaTT’s RTD Programme Manager. She has extensive experience in managing EC research projects, dealing specifically with knowledge management and transfer, communication and dissemination, as well as stakeholder engagement. She has been managing Aqua-tnet, the largest European network in aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic resource management involving universities, research institutes and industry, for over six years.