Who is behind ThinIce?

Mehriban Aliyeva

Alfred Wegener Institute, Potsdam

I am a PhD candidate, researching stability of the drilling mud sumps using geophysical methods and modelling. My focus is on understanding the role of permafrost in providing stability to the Arctic landscapes under a changing climate.

Michael Angelopoulos

Technical University of Munich

I am a postdoctoral scientist extremely interested in the effects of salt transport on the state and stability of permafrost. Through mostly numerical modelling and geophysical imaging, I like to explore the Arctic and write stories about permafrost evolution, both terrestrial and marine.

Sofia Antonova

Alfred Wegener Institute, Potsdam

I am a postdoc with remote sensing expertise. I am coordinating the project and looking at seasonal and long term changes in permafrost landscapes under the climate warming using SAR data.

Verena Bischoff

RWTH Aachen/AWI

I am a PhD candidate in environmental geochemistry, focusing on the presence and fate of persistent organic pollutants in permafrost-affected soils. I hope to contribute to the project by investigating the mobility of potentially released organic contaminants associated with industrial activities upon permafrost thaw.

Emma Cameron

TU Braunschweig

I am a PhD candidate reconstructing the environmental histories of freshwater ecosystems using paleoindicators from sediment cores. I investigate the ecological dynamics of newly formed lakes and ponds associated with industrial activity.

Aaron Förderer

 RWTH Aachen

I am an applied geoscientist specializing in geophysics and geothermal energy. I am currently doing my PhD at the Institute of Geomechanics and Underground Technology (GUT) on subsurface thermal modeling and physics-informed machine learning.

Raul Fuentes

RWTH Aachen

I am the head of the Chair of Geotechnical Engineering and the Institute for Geomechanics and Underground Technology (GUT) at RWTH Aachen. My research interests lie in frozen soils, ground-robot interaction, geogrids, geothermal energy, and numerical and ML modeling.

Georg Guggenberger 

Leibniz Universität Hannover

I am a soil biogeochemist focusing on processes of organic carbon transformation and stabilization in soil. 

The team from Hannover will assess the consequences of pollutant release from drilling mud pits on the surrounding terrestrial ecosystems. 

Danielle Kraak

VU Amsterdam

I am a PhD student delving into the mysteries of infrastructure damage from permafrost thaw and the journey of contaminants. When I'm not in the field, I'm busy modelling permafrost thaw dynamics and preparing for the next paper.

Moritz Langer

VU Amsterdam

I am the project lead and permafrost researcher who not only digs holes to measure temperature and other soil properties, but is also interested in developing numerical models for predicting the impact of climate change on permafrost.

Silian Pan

Leibniz Universität Hannover

I am a PhD candidate delving into permafrost microbiology, exploring the mysteries of tiny organisms in cold, contaminated soils.

Antje Schwalb

TU Braunschweig

I am a geologist interested in the interactions between climate, landscape and humans.

The team from Braunschweig will assess

the impacts of climate change and pollutant inputs over time on aquatic ecosystems.