Climate researcher Ana Bastos receives Beutenberg Campus award 2022

November 18, 2022

Dr. Ana Bastos, group leader at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, is this year’s winner of the Beutenberg Campus science award in the category „outstanding junior research scientist”. She will be honored for her investigations on the temporal variability of the global carbon-cycle. Her successful research bridges the disciplines of atmospheric science, ecology and biogeochemistry, from both observation-based and modelling perspectives.
 

Dr. Bastos investigates how the carbon cycle, drastically affecting the world’s climate, varies on inter-annual up to long-term time scales. She was the first to bring together atmospheric circulation patterns with the terrestrial carbon cycle for the Northern Hemisphere. She then continued to analyze the impact of droughts and heatwaves by exploiting the natural variability of these different phenomena. This enabled her to understand the vulnerability of ecosystems to extreme events, specifically related to impacts on CO2 sequestration. Dr. Bastos went on to identify legacy effects of climate anomalies at seasonal and inter-annual time scales.

Dr. Bastos’ successful research already earned her several international leaderships in larger climate research programs, including an activity from the World-Climate Research Programme (WCRP). She was awarded the 2021 “Outstanding Early-Career Scientist” by the European Geosciences Union. Most notably, she was awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant this year, to investigate the forest’s vulnerability to extremes and disturbances in a changing climate.

Ana Bastos studied environmental sciences in Lisbon, Portugal, where she also earned her PhD.  After postdoctoral years in France and at LMU Munich, she joined the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC) in Jena, Germany, in 2020. “I couldn’t think of a better place in the world to develop my research plans and learn from my colleagues at MPI-BGC and other institutes in Jena”, Ana Bastos says.

The Beutenberg Campus e.V. awards two excellent scientists every year in two categories, with a prize value of 1, 000 euros each. The prize for outstanding dissertations will be awarded to Dr. Mario Krespach from Hans Knöll Institute, Jena.

The award ceremony took place at the beginning of the Noble Talk event on Thursday, November 17th, 2022 at 05 p.m.

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