{"id":165,"date":"2022-08-26T13:18:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T11:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/?page_id=165"},"modified":"2025-10-02T10:43:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T08:43:19","slug":"people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/people\/","title":{"rendered":"People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Current Group Members<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Prof. Dr. Marco Keiluweit (he\/him, PI)<\/strong>
Marco is an Associate Professor and the PI of the Soil Biogeochemistry Group in the Faculty of Geosciences and the Environment (FGSE) at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). Since his years as a BSc student, Marco has been interested in the molecular mechanisms that underlie soil function, and its response to climate change.  He received his BSc in Geoecology fom the University of T\u00fcbingen (Germany) as well as MSc and PhD degrees in Soil Biogeochemistry from Oregon State University (USA). During his PhD, Marco worked as a Lawrence Scholar in the Isotope Signature Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA). After defending his dissertation in 2013, he joined the Environmental & Soil Biogeochemistry group at Stanford University (USA) as a Postdoctoral Scholar between 2014 and 2015. Marco became Assistant Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2016, before moving his group to UNIL in 2022.  <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. Luis Colocho (he\/him, Senior Scientist)<\/strong>
Luis is a Senior Scientist in Analytical Biogeochemistry. He received his Dr. rer. nat. in Biogeochemistry from the Technical University of Munich (Germany), following a M.Sc. in Soil Science and a B.S. from the Federal University of Vi\u00e7osa (Brazil).  Thereafter, he conducted his postdoctoral research at the beamline ID21 of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), and served as a Beamline Scientist at the beamline I08 of Diamond Light Source (UK), before moving to UNIL in 2025. He aims to understand how biological actors\u2014plants, microbes, and humans\u2014shape soil geochemistry and ecosystem function. He draws from his experience at large-scale research facilities to integrate cutting-edge microspectroscopic techniques to interrogate the molecular-scale interactions at soil interfaces.  <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. Emily Lacroix (she\/her, postdoc) <\/strong>\nEmily joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group in January 2023. She received her BA in Chemistry modified with Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College (USA) and a PhD in Soil Biogeochemistry from Stanford University (USA). Emily is broadly interested in soil carbon cycling and specifically interested in how anoxic microsites, zones of oxygen depletion in otherwise oxic soils, may (or may not!) affect soil carbon cycling. Her postdoctoral work will investigate whether roots are key drivers of anoxic microsite formation and if root-associated anoxic microsites alter the fate of root-derived carbon.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. Jill Bachelder (she\/her, postdoc) <\/strong>
Jill joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group as a postdoctoral researcher in September 2025. She holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry from McGill University and an M.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Montreal. Jill completed her doctorate in the group of plant nutrition at ETH Z\u00fcrich, followed by a postdoc at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ Leipzig). During her time in the Soil Biogeochemistry group, Jill will be investigating how limited nutrient availability and plant-soil-microbial interactions affect mineral-associated organic matter in degraded tropical pasture soils from the Colombian Orinoqu\u00eda. <\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. Megan Foley (she\/her, postdoc)<\/strong>
Megan joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group in November 2024. She received her PhD in Biology from Northern Arizona University (USA) where she studied environmental and evolutionary controls over microbial growth in soil. Megan is interested in how microbe-mineral interactions affect organic carbon cycling in soils. During her PhD, Megan was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Research Program fellowship and worked in the Environmental Isotope Systems Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA) as a Department of Energy Graduate Student Research Fellow.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Philip Gwyther (he\/his, PhD student)<\/strong>
Philip joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group in July 2024. He became interested in microbial biochemistry during his BSc in Molecular Biology at the University of Sheffield, working on metabolic modeling and bacterial detoxification projects. He completed his MSc in Integrative Biology at the University of Lausanne, where his thesis focussed on the role of niche availability in soil inoculant persistence. As an SNSF Junior Researcher, he used deep learning to analyze the cytometric diversity of soil microbiota. In his PhD, Philip will investigate how tidal and diel cycles drive redox conditions and microbial metabolism in salt marsh soils and their subsequent impacts on carbon cycling in the system. <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Junna Frei (she\/her, PhD student)
<\/strong>Junna received her MSc in Biology at the University of Neuch\u00e2tel specializing in Sustainable Agriculture and Chemical Ecology. During her thesis on biorecovery of phosphorus from digested sewage sludge using basidiomycetes, she developed a strong interest in mycology, particularly in the ability of fungi to recover nutrients from their substrate. At UNIL, she is involved in a research experiment aimed at determining the impact of changes in rainfall intensity on the dynamics of mineral-organic associations in the rhizosphere. She is particularly interested in investigating how fungi affect mineral-organic associations.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Dr. Xu Fang (he\/him, postdoc)
<\/strong>Xu joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group in April 2024. He obtained his doctorate in August 2022 and did his first postdoc at ETH Z\u00fcrich, where he investigated soil management strategies and the underlying biogeochemistry of decreasing As and Cd accumulation in rice. He is fascinated by the plant-mineral-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere of wetland plants where root-released oxygen meets the otherwise anoxic water-saturated soil matrix, dictating the fate of nutrients, toxins, and organic carbon in such soils. His postdoctoral research at UNIL will address how does organic carbon decomposition in the coastal marsh rhizosphere responds to tidal variations.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Samuel Steiner (he\/him, PhD student)
<\/strong>Samuel, from Basel, Switzerland, joined the group as a PhD candidate in August 2023. He works on a joint project between Agroscope and the University of Lausanne, investigating the effects of fertilization and soil quality on organic matter retention and nitrogen use efficiency in croplands. Before starting his PhD, Samuel worked in the private sector, focusing on agroforestry and certification in cocoa production, as well as a sustainable rice intensification project in Senegal. He holds a Master's degree in Agricultural Sciences from ETH Zurich, where he specialised in plant nutrition and rhizodeposition.
Samuel is passionate about the global challenges of food security and climate change, aiming to empower producers with tools and insights for climate-smart farming. He is fascinated by the trade-offs in agriculture\u2014balancing productivity, environmental health, and societal needs\u2014making it a unique intersection of natural and social sciences.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Bouke Bentvelsen (she\/her, PhD student)
<\/strong>Bouke joined the Soil Biogeochemistry group as a PhD student in November 2024. She holds a degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam. Initially involved in a collaborative project connecting cancer research and developmental biology, she found herself more interested in the environment than in humans. It led her to environmental microbiology, where, as an SNSF researcher, she worked a project aimed to identify and classify soil bacterial species using live cell imaging data. Now, in her PhD, she wants to better understand organic matter dynamics in soil, with a specific focus on the role of soil bacteria. Soil microbial communities affect both carbon retention and release in the soil, with bacterial necromass playing a significant role in carbon persistence. Her research focuses on the microenvironments controlling necromass formation and persistence.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Current MS students<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Hanna Baumann, MS Biogeosciences
Mathilde Ferry, MS Biogeosciences
Am\u00e9lyie B\u00fcrki, MS Biogeosciences
Rosalie Balatinac, MS Biogeosciences
Egon van der Loo, MS Biogeosciences
Ma\u00ebl Luluc, MS Biogeosciences
S\u00e9bastien Meylan, MS Biogeosciences<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Current Affiliates<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Noelia Garcia Franco (she\/her, visiting scientist) - Agroscope
Dr. Floriane Jamoteau (she\/her, visiting scientist) - CEGERE
Gabriella Griffin (she\/her, PhD Student) - UMass Amherst
Chunlan Ni (she\/her, PhD student) - CSC Fellow<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Alumni<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Floriane Jamoteau - postdoc 2023-2025 - now staff scientist at CEREGE, France
Nathan Chin - PhD in 2025 - now postdoc atSmithsonian Environmental Research Center (Megonigal lab), USA
Mariela Garcia Arredondo - PhD in 2023 - now postdoc Yale University (in Slessarev group,, USA
Cam Anderson - PhD in 2023 - now postdoc at UMass Amherst (DeAngelis lab), USA
Nathan A. Chin - MS in 2022 - now PhD student in the Keiluweit Lab
Dr. Tobias Bolscher - Postdoc 2018-2021 - now Staff Scientist at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE), France.
Isobel Arthen-Long - MS in 2021 - now staff scientist at Tighe & Bond Environmental Consulting, USA
Dr. Xiao-Jun Allen Liu - Postdoc 2020-2021 - now Postdoc at University of Oklahoma, USA
Dr. Morris E. Jones - Postdoc 2016-2019 - now Assistant Professor at Franklin Pierce University, USA
Dr. Hui Li - Postdoc 2019-2020 - now Assistant Professor at NC State University, USA
Rachelle E. LaCroix - MS in 2018 - now PhD student at Cornell University (Lehmann Lab), USA<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Former BS students<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Shannel 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<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Current Group Members Prof. Dr. Marco Keiluweit (he\/him, PI)Marco is an Associate Professor and the PI of the Soil Biogeochemistry Group in the Faculty of Geosciences and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002478,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-165","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/165\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/bgc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}