Professor Markus Reichstein was elected as an AGU Fellow
Director at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, honored for his research on responses and feedbacks of ecosystems to climatic variability.
Markus Reichstein was elected as an AGU Fellow, joining a distinguished worldwide group of 52 individuals in the 2025 Class of Fellows. AGU, the world's largest Earth and space science association, bestows this honor annually to a select number of individuals who have made exceptional contributions. Since the program’s inception in 1962, less than 0.1% of AGU members have been selected as Fellows each year.
AGU Fellows are recognized for their scientific eminence, demonstrated through breakthroughs, discoveries or innovations that advance the Earth and space sciences. Fellows act as external experts, advising government agencies and other organizations outside the sciences upon request. Markus Reichstein was selected for his outstanding scientific achievements and exemplary leadership. His research has significantly advanced our understanding of the response and feedback of ecosystems (vegetation and soils) to climatic variability with an Earth system perspective.
Markus Reichstein is specifically interested in the interplay of climate extremes with ecosystem and societal resilience. He is addressing these topics with a combination of artificial intelligence and system modelling approaches to exploit the wealth of experimental, ground- and satellite-based Earth observation data.
Markus Reichstein studied Ecology with Botany, Chemistry and Computer Science as minor and obtained his PhD in Plant Ecology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Since 2013 he is Professor for Global Geoecology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and founding Director at the Michael-Stifel-Center Jena for Data-driven and Simulation Science. He is fellow within the excellence network ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems) and founding director of the ELLIS Unit Jena established in 2021. He has been serving as lead author of the IPCC special report on Climate Extremes (SREX), as member of the German Commitee Future Earth on Sustainability Research, and on the Thuringian Panel on Climate. Recent awards include the Piers J. Sellers Mid-Career Award by the American Geophysical Union (2018), an ERC Synergy Grant (2019) and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Preis (2020).
“I am humbled to join the ranks of AGU Fellows which I’ve long admired. In a time when science is under pressure worldwide, this honor inspires me to further advance science and thus strengthen resilience in a world confronted with critical challenges.”, says Markus Reichstein.
Honorees will be recognized at AGU25, which will convene in New Orleans, Louisiana and on 15-19 December 2025. Reflecting the theme 'Where Science Connects Us' at AGU25, the Honors Ceremony will recognize groundbreaking achievements that illustrate science's continual advancement, inspiring the AGU community with their stories and successes.
