Mark Gessner
Ecosystem Ecologist
Mark Gessner is an ecosystem ecologist with a particular interest in fresh waters. His research has been focusing on impacts of global environmental change on the functioning and biodiversity of lakes, streams and wetlands.
Mark obtained his doctoral degree in 1991 at the University of Freiburg (Germany) following research conducted at the CNRS in France on litter decomposition in streams. Other legs on his career path include the University of Kiel in Germany, Eawag and ETH Zurich in Switzerland, Trent University in Canada (exchange student) and Stanford University in California, USA (visiting scholar). He has been serving on various editorial and other boards and committees. This includes his role as special issues editor of Freshwater Biology for nine years. In 2005, Mark was awarded a titular professorship at ETH Zurich, and in 2019 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, France.
At present, Mark Gessner holds a professorship in Applied Aquatic Science at the Berlin Institute of Technology (TU Berlin) and serves as acting director of Germany’s Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). His research is devoted to providing the fundamental knowledge needed to meet the challenges faced by fresh waters and human societies in a rapidly changing world. He champions an experimental approach in field settings that mimic naturally complex conditions, most notably by means of a large enclosure facility, dubbed the LakeLab, deployed in a deep clear-water lake. Recently he also worked on the second edition of his co-edited book on methods to study litter decomposition, which will appear shortly.
