People

Current Group Members
Prof. Dr. Marco Keiluweit (he/him, group leader)
Marco is an Associate Professor and leads the Soil Biogeochemistry in the Faculty of Geoscience and the Environment at UNIL. He received his BSc in Geoecology fom the University of Tübingen (Germany), a MSc in Soil Chemistry, and a PhD in Soil Biogeochemistry from Oregon State University (USA).  Before moving to Massachusetts, Marco was a Lawrence Scholar in the Isotope Signature Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a Postdoctoral Scholar in Earth System Science at Stanford University.  Before joining UNIL, Marco led his research group as an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst between 2016 and 2022.
Mariela Garcia Arredondo (she/her, PhD student)
Mariela joined the Keiluweit lab in Fall of 2016 after finishing her undergrad at Cornell University. Her BS was in Science of Earth Systems, which she concluded with an Honors thesis in soil organic matter regeneration for desertified grassland soils. She was awarded a Spaulding-Smith Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Program fellowship for her graduate research in the Soil Biogeochemistry Group focused on understanding and assessing how roots affect the soil’s C storage potential. Specifically, how rhizosphere processes can drive mineral-organic association vulnerability in soils. In the future, she would like to work as a soil scientist on either policy or project development for work focused on sustainable agriculture, soil remediation, and/or land development. During her free time she enjoys baking, gardening, and swimming.
Cam Anderson (they/them, PhD student)
Cam joined the Soil Biogeochemistry Group in May 2017. Their interests lie in understanding the factors that control biogeochemical processes, from the micro- to the ecosystem-scale. Their research uses both laboratory and field experiments to explore biotic and abiotic transformations of mineral-organic associations, with a focus on dynamic floodplain systems. Cam received their MSc in Soils and Biogeochemistry from UC Davis, and recently worked as a Research Associate at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where they studied soil carbon cycling in high latitude systems.
Nathan A. Chin (he/him, PhD student)
Nathan joined the lab in Fall 2018 after completing his undergraduate BSc in environmental studies at Cornell University. At Cornell, Nathan completed an honors thesis looking at changes in enzyme activity in forest soils following increased nitrogen deposition and soil acidification. He is particularly interested in soil biogeochemical cycles and how they interact with each other, particularly carbon. Branching out from his undergraduate experience, Nathan joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group to study Manganese redox cycling in forest soils and how it links to organic matter decomposition. ​
Josephine Imboden (she/her, PhD student)
Josephine joined the Soil Biogeochemistry Group in October 2022. She completed her MSc in Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich specializing in Ecology and Evolution. Her MSc thesis consisted of a laboratory experiment on carbon and nutrient dynamics in decomposing litter from across elevational gradients conducted at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. In her PhD she will focus on carbon cycling in the rhizosphere and examine how roots influence soil carbon stored in mineral-organic associations.
Chunlan Ni (she/her, PhD student)
Chunlan Ni joined the Keiluweit lab in Fall of 2022 as a Chinese Scholarship Council fellow. She holds a MSc in Soil Science from Huazhong Agricultural University where she is currently pursuing a PhD. Her research interest lie in investigating the biotic and abiotic mechanism of the biogeochemical cycling of trace elements and carbon. Specifically, the interaction between reactive Mn species and organic matter.
Past Group Members
PostdocsDr. Tobias Bolscher – Postdoc 2018-2021 – now Staff Scientist at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE), Paris, France.
Dr. Xiao-Jun Allen Liu – Postdoc 2020-2021 – now Postdoc at University of Oklahoma
Dr. Morris E. Jones – Postdoc 2016-2019 – now Assistant Professor at Franklin Pierce University
Dr. Hui Li – Postdoc 2019-2020 – now Assistant Professor at NC State University
MSc studentsNathan A. Chin – MSc in 2022 – now PhD student in the Keiluweit Lab
Isobel Arthen-Long – MSc in 2021 – now staff scientist at Tighe & Bond Environmental Consulting
Rachelle E. LaCroix – MSc in 2018 – now PhD student at Cornell University (Lehmann Lab)
BSc studentsShannel Thorpe – BSc in 2021 – now PhD student at UC Riverside
Jacob Ziegler – BSc in 2019 – now PhD student at University of Iowa
Genevieve Goebel – BSc in 2019 – now PhD student at Dartmouth (Hicks-Pries Lab)
Alex Gamble – BSc in 2020 
Menli McCreight – BSc in 2018
Megan Wilcots – BSc in 2018 – now PhD student at Washington University 
Sarah Pardi – BSc in 2018
Andrea Chica – BSc in 2017