You, Me & HIFMB - Stories of Science and the Sea

Today, we hear from Merdeka, a PhD-student in the former Marine Political Ecology Group that is now part of the Marine Governance Group. He reports on his recent manuscript about tin mining by Indonesian divers and how he switches the perspectives in his writing to highlight topics that are otherwise forgotten about. Merdeka also reflects on what it is like to have children as a PhD student and how much he likes his neighbours in Oldenburg. 

In a thunderous summer episode, we hear from Anna Roik - postdoc at HIFMB. Her work is centered around harnessing the microbiome (the collection of bacteria, viruses, fungi and their genes) on corals. She transplants the microbiome of more heat resistant corals onto that of heat susceptible ones to boost their resilience in the face of climate change. 

Jasmin Groß and Elena Schall - both representatives of the Postdoc-Team a the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research - bring a hot topic to the podcast: the recently proposed law reforms surrounding the "Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz". This is a "Law on Fixed-Term Contracts in Higher Education and Research" and it is due for a change. Jasmin and Elena will present to us what is included in this change and why it has gotten a lot of negative backlash.

As a timestamp: The recording was done in May 2023 and does not discuss the most recent events in the week of the 5th of June 2023. #IchbinHannah

Mita Mahato is an artist who uses art to communicate environmental issues - especially via the use of comix - yes with an X! As our artist in residence in collaboration with the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study, Mita reflects on the work she has done during her time with us.

HIFMB postdoc Dorothee Hodapp is working on biodiversity change and is giving us insights into her recently published study in Global Change Biology. Here, she shows how climate change disrupts core habitats of marine species and predicts their ranges up to the year 2100. She further shares her recipe for successfully blending family life with two kids with a gapless CV in academia and her recent move into a permanent position in the sciene-policy interface. 

Today we have Meren on the show. He is the leader of our institute's Ecosystem Data Science Group and considers himself and his group to be placed at the intersection between microbiology and computer science. Mentorship is an imporant topic to him - we talk through his survey Mentorship in life sciences: voices of mentees, where he asked early career researchers how the mentorship that they received affected them and their academic lives. As always, we also talk about Meren's very own academic live and how he got to where he is today. A super valuable episode for academic mentors and mentees alike!

Back from our winter break, we have Jana Massing on the podcast. Jana is a PhD-student in the Biodiversity Theory group and introduces us to her work on marine bacteria. Amongst her many interests, including food webs, modelling, governance and science communication, we chat about her recent paper. There she applies a manifold learning technique, called “diffusion maps” that allows her to gain insights into the functions that bacteria can play in the Baltic Sea.

Gema Martínez Méndez reads her Scientific Fairytale "The Bremen Town Musicians set sail" from "Once Upon a Time – A Scientific Fairytale Vol. 1" that we introduced in Episode 11. Happy Holidays everyone! 

In this Episode, postdoc Andrea Franke showcases her latest paper from People and Nature on real-world labs. She also shares with us how she expanded her research from specialised experimental work on herring larvae to transdisciplinary work on the UN Ocean Decade. A great example on how to build interdisciplinary recognition!

Lucie Kuczynski is a community ecologist working on global change and what it implies for biodiversity. One of her recent studies shows why the biodiversity crisis is too nuanced to be tackled in the same way as global warming. She also enlightens us why French wine is the best, why La Rochelle is the best city and why Academia is not the only career path for Academics. A lot of wisdom in this episode – don’t miss it!