Maria is an aquatic ecologist with a strong interest in experimental analyses of limnic and marine pelagic food web dynamics. In 2012, she got her PhD in Ecology from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München. She worked mainly on biodiversity effects on biochemical patterns in phytoplankton. During my PhD she had the opportunity to work in various projects abroad regarding freshwater and marine plankton. 2013,  she joined Elena Litchmans lab at the Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University working on experimental and theoretical trait-based approaches to optimizing algal biofuel polycultures. 2014, she joined the Experimental Aquatic Ecology group at LMU as an assistant professor where she mainly focuses on the interplay between trait diversity and ecological dynamics in plankton communities. She co-leads the Seeon Limnological Station (SLS), which is part of the AQUACOSM (Horizon 2020 funded) network of leading European aquatic mesocosm facilities. In addition to lab experiments, she is an enthusiastic field experimentalist working with a very mobile pelagic mesocosm system with high replication and several modern techniques to analyse water chemistry and plankton communities. At LMU, she is strongly involved in teaching Biology/Ecology at the bachelor and master level and enjoy working with undergraduate and graduate students in various projects at the research station.