Advisory Board and Editors Biosphere Interactions
Peter R Girguis
Peter Girguis joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor in 2005, becoming full professor in 2012. His research efforts are aimed at better understanding how microbes mediate matter and energy flow through Earth’s biosphere. He develops novel methods and technologies for studying microbially-mediated energy flow and harvesting, including laboratory and in situ incubators that better mimic environmental conditions, and field-deployable instruments such as underwater mass spectrometers, carbon isotope analyzers and high-performance hydrogen sensors that allow him to study microbial processes in the lab and in situ.
Girguis has authored or co-authored over 85 publications, including papers in Nature, Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Girguis is a board member of the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET), is on Schmidt Ocean Institute vehicle advisory boards, and served as chair of the National Science Foundations’ Deep Submergence Science Committee (DeSSC).
Girguis’ honors include 5 consecutive years of commendations for distinguished teaching, the 2007 and 2011 Lindbergh Foundation Award for Science & Sustainability, a 2010 Honorable mention in the ENI International Energy and the Environment Award, a feature in the 2008 Discover Magazine’s “10 Everyday Technologies That Can Change the World” (bio-powered lights), and a 2008 Honorable Mention in the Buckminster Fuller Innovations in Science Award.
Alex B Guenther
Professor of Earth System Science and author of more than 300 peer-reviewed journal articles. Elected fellow, American Geophysical Union. Recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Thompson Reuters. Associate editor of several journals and chair of the Global Emissions Inventory Activity (GEIA) and Integrated Land-Ecosystem Process Study (iLEAPS) core activities of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP). Contributing author, Third and Fourth Assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Kai-Uwe Hinrichs
A biogeochemist studying the interactions between microbial life and the carbon cycle on a range of spatial, temporal and molecular scales. Interested in which and how microbes shape element cycles and what the related environmental consequences are.
Current research foci encompass the marine deep biosphere, methane biogeochemistry, life in extreme environments, development of new analytical protocols for the analysis of organic trace constituents in geological sample matrices, prokaryotic membrane lipid taxonomy, and the study of paleoenvironments.
Edward R C Hornibrook
Edward Hornibrook is a Professor at The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus and the current Head of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences. He is a biogeochemist specializing in stable isotopes with research interests in land-water-atmosphere exchange of trace gases. He employs a range of techniques, including gas and ion chromatography, laser spectroscopy and stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry, to study gases that have the potential to alter Earth’s climate, in particular, methane and carbon dioxide. Key topics are how such gases are produced and consumed in natural and anthropogenic environments, and the rates and mechanisms by which they are exchanged with the atmosphere.
Cho-ying Huang
Cho-ying Huang is a professor in the Department of Geography at National Taiwan University. His research interests include global ecology, terrestrial biogeochemistry and remote sensing of the environment.
David W Johnston
Dave Johnston is a biological oceanographer and marine conservation ecologist whose research focuses on the habitat needs of marine vertebrates in relation to pressing conservation issues.
Jean-Lou Justine
Professor of parasitology at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.
A specialist of systematics of monogeneans and certain parasitic nematodes, also interested in parasite biodiversity in coral reef fish, phylogeny of Platyhelminthes and Nematodes, and land planarians. Curator of the collections of parasitic worms of the MNHN.
Former Editor of “Zoosystema” and “Mémoires du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle”. Currently Editor of “Parasite”, an open-access journal.
See my Publons profile for more information on peer-review activity.
Mykola Karabiniuk
I work as an Associate professor of the Department of Physical Geography and Efficient Environmental Management of Uzhhorod National University. The scientific degree PhD (Geography) with a specialty in physical geography, geophysics and geochemistry of landscapes was awarded for the defense of a dissertation at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, which is devoted to the features of landscape organization and the efficiency of using the highlands of the Chornogora massif of the Ukrainian Carpathians.
I specialize in landscape diversity and evolutionary development of mountain systems, mapping and geoinformation analysis of the structure and properties of geocomplexes to determine the geoecological situation, as well as the problems of anthroposis of landscapes and efficient use of nature. For scientific achievements in the field of geoecology and the applied significance of the results of the study of the highlands of the Ukrainian Carpathians to solve environmental problems of the Danube region in 2021 I was awarded the Danubius Young Scientist Award. In 2025, based on the decision of the Certification Board of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the academic title of Associate Professor of the Department of Physical Geography and Rational Nature Management was awarded. I am also a full member of the Ukrainian Geographical Society.
Anja Linstädter
Anja Linstädter is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cologne and head of the Range Ecology and Management Group. Her research focuses on global change impacts on managed terrestrial ecosystems. She is particularly interested in the interactive effects of global change agents - such as grazing and drought - on the functioning of African drylands, and in consequences for ecosystem service delivery. Ultimately, her research aims at designing ecosystem-based management strategies.
Monique Messié
Research specialist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) working on physical/biological interactions in the oceans.
My research combines satellite products, models and in situ data to study ecosystem processes and physical/biological interactions in the coastal and open oceans. Current areas of research include physical and biological variability at regional and global scales, ecosystem response to climate and ocean change, bioluminescence in the upper ocean, marine hotspots in the California Current, connections between surface, midwater and benthic communities, and the effect of tropical islands on phytoplankton biomass and biodiversity.
Leonardo Montagnani
I graduated in Forest Science from the University of Tuscia, Viterbo, in 1996. I took my Ph.D. in Forest Ecology at the University of Padova in 2000.
Since then I worked as a consultant for different Institutions, primarily the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, then with the Free University of Bolzano as Assistant Professor, teaching Agroecosystems at the University of Innsbruck.
Starting in 2023 I was appointed as an Endowed Professor at the Free University of Bolzano.
My main research area is the interaction between natural and cultivated systems and the atmosphere. In particular, as an expert in eddy covariance measurements, I developed a new mass conservation approach to quantify the non-turbulent transport of carbon dioxide from the forest to the atmosphere. More recently, I acted as the lead author of the protocol for the quantification of the storage of CO2 and other gasses in the canopy air layer. I'm working also on soil processes and on the exchange of alpine vegetation and the atmosphere.
Alvaro Montenegro
Alvaro Montenegro is from Brazil but has lived in North America since 1999. Alvaro's formal training is in Physical Oceanography and he obtained his MS from the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and his PhD from Florida State University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria (BC, Canada) where he started to change his focus from oceanography to climatology. After a period as assistant professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish (NS, Canada) he arrived at Ohio State University in 2012. Alvaro's current research interests encompass various aspects of climate change and climate variability, particularly physical and biogeochemical processes occurring at the global and continental spatial scales. Alvaro looks into these problems using mainly climate models but also employ observations. He has used models to address questions on a broad range of subjects from paleoclimate to climate policy, with a concentration on carbon cycle modeling. He is also interested in using paleoclimatic data to constrain archaeological and biogeographic theories.