Bettina Reuter - Teamassistant
Kristina Bayer - Research Scientist
Erik Borchert - Group leader
Hassan Humeida - Postdoctoral Researcher
David K. Ngugi - Group leader
Leon Steiner - Ph.D Candidate
Jing Huang - Ph.D Candidate
Wenqing Shi - Ph.D Candidate
Alexi Pearson-Lund - Ph.D Candidate
Ivan Patrick Baquiano Tualla - Ph.D Candidate
Andrea Hethke - Technician
Joana F. Couceiro
Since 2022, PhD candidate in Biotechnology and Biosciences at Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon (Portugal). Currently working on the diversity and secondary metabolism of bacterial communities associated with temperate octocorals and marine sponges through multiomics approaches, including culturomics, metagenomics and metabolomics. Quantification (qPCR) and visualization (FISH) of key coral-associated bacteria at GEOMAR, under the supervision of Dr. Kristina Bayer and Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel Humeida
Anna Berezkina
Since 2023 MSC4Ukraine fellowship at AWI with secondments at GEOMAR (supervision by Marlene Wall). 2022-2023: Postdoc in the research at AWI through Helmholtz “Microbial biodiversity of the cold-water coral Desmophyllum dianthus”. Scientific Interests Biodiversity and population genetics of benthic organisms and its interaction with marine microbiota, Ecology of cold-water corals, Phylogeny and morphology of cold-water prokaryotes, Microbial association, microbial function, antibiotic resistance.
Sunwoo Lee Master Thesis: The sponge resistor along the Schwentine (supervision: Dr. David Ngugi)
Mareike Georg Master thesis CAU Kiel (Sept 2025): Monitoring of microbiota in sex-specific tissues of the broad-nosed pipefish Syngnathus typhle during the breeding season (supervision: Olivia Roth, co-supervision: Prof. Dr. Hentschel Humeida)
Johanna Stoske Master thesis CAU Kiel (Aug 2025): Metaproteomic analysis of the metabolic exchange in the Paracatenula-Riegeria intracellular endosymbiosis (supervision: Harald Gruber-Vodicka, co-supervision: Prof. Dr. Hentschel Humeida)
Jonathan Kix BSc thesis: Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Juli 2025: Taxonomic and Microbial Profiling of Diseased and Healthy Marine Sponges from a Commercial Sponge Farm on Zanzibar (supervision: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Fraune / Universität Düsseldorf, Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hentschel Humeida)
Mailin Suchanke BSc thesis CAU Kiel, Juni 2025: Aquacultural gateways of antimicrobials in the marine environment: A case study of the cold-water-coral Desmophyllum dianthus in Chilean Comau-fjord (supervision: Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel, Dr. Hassan Humeida, co-supervision: Dr. Marlene Wall)
Alba Moreno Master Thesis: Bioinformatic and molecular biology studies of extremozymes from the marine realm for plastic degradation (supervision: Dr. Erik Borchert)
Ayodele Gbla Master thesis (fall 2025): The effects of climate change on antibiotic resistance development in commercially relevant fish species (supervision: Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel, co-supervision: Dr. Hassan Humeida, Dr. Jutta Wiese)
Paula Behrens BSc thesis CAU Kiel, Sept 2024: The light dependent green coloration of the sponge H. panicea in the Kiel Fjord is caused by eukaryotic algae (supervision: Olivia Roth, co-supervision Kristina Bayer, Ute Hentschel Humeida)
Albert Marpert BSc thesis: Interactions of culturable Bacteria from diseased and healthy Halichondria panicea sponges (supervision: Leon Steiner)
Marla Dohrn Master thesis: Niche separation of benthic deep-sea holobionts in the north-west Atlantic assessed by quantification and spatial extrapolation of the amoA gene (supervision: Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel Humeida)
Franziska Theising Master thesis: The Atlanto-Pacific connection: Does a circumpolar distribution exist for deep-sea sponges? The case study of Stylocordyla borealis (Porifera: Demospongiae) (supervision: Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel Humeida)
Samantha Chase Master thesis: Exploring marine plastic degradation potential in the bacterial order Pseudomonadales (supervision: Dr. Erik Borchert)
Andrés Rufino-Navarro Master thesis: Influence of photosymbionts on the survival of the larvae from the sea urchin Arbacia lixula (Supervisor: Dr. Tyler Carrier)
Onur Turak Master thesis: Identification of bacterial poly(ethylene terephthalate)-degrading enzymes from marine metagenomes (supervision: Dr. Erik Borchert)
Janis Müller Master thesis: Bacterial carbon uptake and respiration in the Baltic Sea sponge Halichondria panicea: natural vs. aquaria conditions (supervision: Angela Marulanda)
Denisse Verkovitch Master thesis: Plastic degrading potential of the bacterial order Enterobacterales (supervision: Dr. Erik Borchert)
Maëlle Zonnequin Master thesis: Cloning and heterologous expression of marine bacterial enzymes for the degradation of plastic (supervision: Dr. Erik Borchert)
Tora Dkawlma Master thesis: 16s rRNA gene sequence analysis of the microbial community on microplastic samples from the North Atlantic and great Pacific garbage patches
