Career News
Hydrogeologist Gudrun Massmann to be part of new Research Unit funded by DFG
(© Gudrun Massmann)
Prof Gudrun Massmann
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has established a new Research Unit called DynaDeep, in which Professor Gudrun Massmann from the Institute for Biology and Environmental Sciences at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg will play a central role. DynaDeep is one of seven new Units which will receive a total of approximately €25 million.
Prof Massmann’s work centres on the interactions between groundwater and surface water as well as on coastal hydrogeology. This focus will be key in the upcoming DynaDeep project, the full title of which is The Dynamic Deep Subsurface of High-Energy Beaches. The project aims to investigate what happens when groundwater flows underground into the sea as it happens on beaches with high wind and wave dynamics, and what impact it might have on coastal ecosystems.
“We are hoping to be able to shed light on the functioning and relevance of the subsurface of so far understudied high-energy beaches,” Prof Massmann told AcademiaNet, “regarding the dynamics of porewater flow, biogeochemical reactions and its role as a microbial habitat.”
Prof Massmann has been in her current position since 2010, before which she worked at Freie Universität Berlin where she also completed her PhD and Habilitation. She has also spent time in Australia, specifically in Adelaide, working both at the Flinders University of South Australia and within the South Australian Government. Beyond her involvement with this project, she holds a Heisenberg grant from the DFG.
Apart from Prof Massmann, other researchers based at the University of Oldenburg are involved with DynaDeep, as are researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Kiel University, Leibniz Institute for Applied Microbiology and the Max Planck Institute for Maritime Microbiology. (© AcademiaNet)
