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SUMMARY:Inaugural Lecture - Prof. Meret Aeppli
DTSTART:20230531T173000
DTEND:20230531T193000
DTSTAMP:20260414T124228Z
UID:f0bafceac68083452eced3ecfff32b806e7f3b945eadcba14cd31258
CATEGORIES:Inaugural lectures - Honorary Lecture
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Meret Aeppli\nDate: 31 May 2023\nTime: 17:30 - 19:30\nI
 ntroductions by the Dean\, lectures by Prof. Meret Aeppli\, Prof. Ianina A
 ltshuler and Prof. Sara Bonetti. Followed by an Apero.\nPlace: CO 1\nZoom 
 link\n\nTitle:\nShedding light on the dark side of terrestrial ecosystems:
  assessing biogeochemical drivers of element cycling in soils\n\nAbstract\
 nSoils are the living skin of the Earth. They play a crucial role in many 
 of today’s environmental challenges ranging from climate change and wate
 r pollution to biodiversity loss and food supply. The capability of healt
 hy soils to ameliorate these challenges is governed in part by biogeochemi
 cal processes taking place within the soils. These processes occur the int
 erface of living (e.g.\, microbes) and non-living (e.g.\, minerals) soil c
 omponents and are main drivers of element cycling. Reduction-oxidation (re
 dox) reactions are of particular importance because they are directly link
 ed to the transformation of energy and thus the sustenance of microbial li
 fe. In the context of climate change\, soil biogeochemical processes are a
  crucial but partly missing piece in our understanding and predictive capa
 bility of the soils‘ response to climate change and feedbacks thereof on
  climate: soils host a dynamic carbon pool that is around three times larg
 er than the atmospheric carbon pool. Climate-driven changes in microbial o
 xidation and mineralization of soil organic carbon can result in potential
 ly large greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere as well as a loss in s
 oil fertility.\nAt SOIL\, we aim to understand the fundamental biogeochemi
 cal processes that drive the cycling of critical elements such as carbon. 
 We experimentally assess these processes in the laboratory and field by in
 tegrating approaches traditionally used in soil science with novel (geo)ch
 emistry and microbiology approaches. In this talk\, I will illustrate mech
 anistic insights from our past work on redox reactions involving soil mine
 rals and their relevance for iron and carbon cycling within soil aggregate
 s and profiles. I will further showcase ongoing research in the group aime
 d at i) elucidating microbial and mineral controls on carbon turnover in a
 lpine watersheds and agricultural soils and ii) resolving the fundamental 
 mechanisms that govern microbial electron transfer and energy transformati
 on in model soils. These examples illustrate how SOIL contributes to an im
 proved understanding of the functioning of the Earth’s skin by shedding 
 light on the biogeochemical drivers of element cycling.\n\n\nAbout the spe
 aker\nProf. Meret Aeppli joined EPFL in September 2022 as tenure track ass
 istant professor and head of the Soil Biogeochemistry Laboratory (SOIL). H
 er group aims to understand the fundamental principles and processes gover
 ning the biogeochemical cycling of critical elements in soil. Meret was a 
 postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in the department of Earth Syst
 em Science from 2019 to 2022 where she investigated biogeochemical control
 s on carbon turnover in soils and sediments. She holds a Bachelor's and a 
 Master's degree in Environmental Sciences from ETH Zurich and obtained her
  PhD from ETH Zurich in 2019. She was awarded the ETH Medal for her disser
 tation work in which she developed novel approaches to quantify the redox 
 properties and reactivities of iron minerals.
LOCATION:CO1 https://plan.epfl.ch//?room==CO%201 https://epfl.zoom.us/j/68
 864051571
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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