NAMRIP member awarded prestigious fellowship
Dr. Marcela Hernández, a visiting fellow from our university and NAMRIP member, has received an award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to perform a research stay for 6 months at the Thünen Institute of Biodiversity in Braunschweig, Germany, hosted by Professor Christoph Tebbe.
As a former Humboldt fellow, she was offerred the opportunity to apply to this special alumni sponsorship programme celebrating the 250th birthday of Alexander von Humboldt.
Dr Hernández’ project entitled “Metagenomic profiling of autotrophic and antibiotic resistant bacteria in soils of different ages following volcanic eruptions” aims to identify potential microbial traits involved in early soil formation. Genes implicated in CO-oxidation and antimicrobial resistance will be recovered from each metagenome, mapped to microbial species, and quantified across samples. This project benefits from unique sampling sites in Chile and a focus on an understudied group of bacteria, which are particularly abundant in volcanic soils.
This research stay will bring unique opportunities for collaboration with Germany and Chile and to expand Global NAMRIP, of which Dr Hernandez is an active member, having recently returned from Uganda where she participated in the 2nd Global-NAMRIP conference. This fellowship is a stepping-stone for further larger projects in the field of global climate change, antimicrobial resistance, and soil succession and we wish Dr Hernández every success in her new fellowship role which begins in June.