Dr. Susanne Liebner, who is doing research in the "Geomicrobiology" section at the GFZ, has been appointed "W2-Professorship for Molecular Environmental Microbiology". She takes up this joint appointment of the German Research Center for Geosciences and the University of Potsdam on November 1, 2020.

Her teaching at the University of Potsdam is based at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biology in the master's programs "Ecology, Evolution and Conservation" and "Biochemistry and Molecular Biology". Mrs. Liebner's research focuses on the microbial carbon cycle in the climate system. At the GFZ she heads a research group of the same name. As an "academic hybrid" - Liebner is a geoecologist and microbiologist - she focuses on processes and organisms that contribute to the formation and release of greenhouse gases in and from organically rich sediments and soils. This is the case, for example, in natural and renatured peatlands as well as in the deep biosphere and soils of Arctic ecosystems.

At the German Research Center for Geosciences, Ms. Liebner also heads the molecular microbiology laboratories. Ms. Liebner is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the interdisciplinary research program "TERENO - Terrestrial Environmental Observatories". This comprises a Germany-wide earth observation network that extends from the North German lowlands to the Bavarian Alps. The aim of this large-scale project is to record the long-term ecological, social and economic effects of global change at regional level.