Plenary Speakers

Dr. Christian Voigt is head of the Department Evolutionary Ecology at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (www.izw-berlin.de) and lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin.

His group studies how animals cope with the challenges of life, and how to best protect wildlife in an ever changing environment. In his research he targets mostly European and African wildlife. Specifically, Dr Voigt is interested in understanding human-wildlife conflicts with the ultimate goal of turning conflict into coexistence. He has published more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited two open-access books on conservation research (www.batlab.de). After finishing his studies in zoology with a diploma, he conducted doctoral research at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Multiple research visits at Boston University guided him to use stable isotopes as a central method in his research to understand the physiology and ecology of animals. After postdoc stays at Boston University and Cornell University he started his research career at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, where he established the stable isotope laboratory, and where his group organizes the biennial international summer schools on stable isotopes in animal ecology.

Dr. Hannah Vander Zanden is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Florida, where she also earned her PhD in 2012. In between, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah and then at the US Geological Survey. Her research centers on tracking animal migration patterns and trophic ecology while addressing issues in ecological theory, conservation, and management. Many of her studies have employed the analysis of stable isotopes to understand spatial distributions and resource use in a variety of organisms—often species in peril—in both marine and terrestrial environments. She has also contributed to improving methods and analytical tools for modeling geographic origin with stable isotope data.

Prof. Susan Waldron is Director of Research and Skills at Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, since January 2020, where she is responsible for research programme generation, policy, funding, and delivery in the domains of Discovery Science, Talent and Skills, and International Partnerships. Susan joined NERC after a 25-year career at the University of Glasgow where she held a chair in Biogeochemistry. Her background is in Geology and Earth Systems Processes - and particularly carbon and nutrient transfer from terrestrial to aquatic systems and in disturbed landscapes to understand carbon storage and losses and where isotope systematics have been invaluable in tracing carbon flow. Early on she was initiated into stable isotopes via an internship before turning to Earth systems science and developing techniques to analyze carbon and hydrogen stable isotopes of methane to characterize sources to methane to the atmosphere. Susan has collaborated with many ecologists on stable isotope applications before returning to her interest in tracing carbon and nutrient flows in aquatic ecosystems, and more recently drawing on natural ¹⁴C as a tracer in her ecosystem research. Her presentation will focus on field research in stressed environments to show the power of understanding generated by using stable and radiocarbon isotope measurements as tracers of carbon flows, and the importance of contextualizing this understanding for other disciplines to generate new understanding that can be used to inform environmental management.

Dr Nicolas Duprey is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Nicolas earned his PhD in paleo-oceanography and paleo-climatology at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC/Paris 6) in 2012, before subsequently moving to Hong Kong (HKU, 2012-2016). Nicolas’s research is focused on analyzing the ratio of the stable isotopes of nitrogen of the organic matter trapped inside the crystalline structure of coral skeleton. The information garnered from these ratios can be used to infer a wide variety of information; from the history of oxygen minimum zones to the subtleties of coral symbiosis. Skeletal records of coral-bound nitrogen isotopes provide an invaluable perspective on the marine Nitrogen cycle and coral biology. Beyond these insights, coral-bound nitrogen isotopes also reveal how the ocean and coral reefs respond to global changes, providing insight into the future of coral reefs. His current work focuses on characterizing the variability of the Eastern Tropical Pacific and of the Southwestern Indian Ocean by taking seawater and coral samples.