People

Ivan Mammarella (PhD) is Professor of Biohydrometeorology.  His research is mostly related to biosphere-atmosphere interactions and, in particular, on measuring and understanding vertical exchange processes of momentum, energy, GHGs, other trace gases and aerosol particles between the atmosphere and different terrestrial ecosystems (forest, peatland and lake). He is the principal investigator (PI) of Hyytiälä-SMEAR II ICOS Ecosystem and Atmospheric stations. More about Ivan's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Timo Vesala has been Professor of Meteorology since 2001. He has acted as Academy professor since 2015. Vesala’s main research fields are micrometeorology, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, biogeochemical cycles – especially carbon and water cycles – in forests, wetlands, lakes and rivers, greenhouse and other trace gases and in general mass and heat transport and phase transitions in various atmospheric and ecophysiological systems. His expertise ranges from cell, plant, ecosystem and regional to global scales. Vesala is the leader of ICOS-Finland (Integrated Carbon Observation System). He has run a film club with Dr. Eija Juurola since 2009. He has prepared a popular talk “From Vertigo to Blue velvet – Connotations between movies and climate change”. More information about Timo's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Annalea Lohila (PhD) is an associate professor (50/50 between INAR/Univ. Helsinki and Finnish Meteorological Institute) specialized in biogeochemical cycles and greenhouse gas flux measurements. She has contributed to building flux measurement stations compliant for ICOS and developing the measurements. Her work has dealt with carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes between biosphere and atmosphere in different boreal ecosystems, particularly on pristine and managed peatlands. More information about Annalea's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Pasi Kolari (PhD) is University researcher working on data curation, research infrastructures, greenhouse gas fluxes and forest ecophysiology. More about Pasi's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Xuefei Li (PhD) is University researcher, Docent in biogeochemistry, working on biogeochemical cycle of diverse terrestrial ecosystems, including subtropical forests, pristine peatlands, peatland forest, and urban wetlands. Her expertise spans from leaf-level functional trait to ecosystem-level greenhouse gases fluxes and processes with a wide range of methodologies such as eddy covariance, process-based modelling and stable isotope approach. Besides academic position, Xuefei is also working in the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) as science advisor, tackling global anthropogenic methane emission. More about Xuefei's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Maarit Raivonen (PhD) works with carbon cycling of peatlands. Her research focuses on modelling, and especially on peatland methane emissions. More about Maarit's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Yann Salmon's (PhD) research focus is on water and carbon fluxes in trees and between trees and the atmosphere, what are the processes regulating those fluxes, how they are influenced by the environment and how this response affect the trees. In particular, he is interested in the effect of drought. Beyond the individual level, he studies how tree ecophysiology and fluxes: 1) impact biogeochemical cycles in forest ecosystems, and 2) how they respond to and shape tree ecology. More information can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Aki Vähä (MSc) is a doctoral candidate, currently working on his thesis 'Gas transfer in an acuatic environment' under the supervision of Acad. Prof. Timo Vesala, Prof. Petteri Uotila and Doc. Ivan Mammarella. His current research concentrates on eddy covariance fluxes, measured during the KITEX campaign in 2018 from the boreal river Kitinen. His other research topics include water-side turbulence. More about Aki's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Antti Leppänen (MSc) has a background in mathematics. He is working with peatland methane emission modeling and model development with JSBACH-HIMMELI.

Aleksanteri Mauranen (MSc) is a doctoral student working on the theory of stomatal control and gas exchange in trees. He's been developing a new theoretical framework for stomatal control functions and trying it out using the land surface model JSBACH. He's also part of the ecosystem processes group at INAR / Forest Sciences. More about Aleksanteri's research can be found from University of Helsinki research portal.

Mikko Skogberg (MSc) is a doctoral student working on greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon sequestration in agricultural ecosystems. He conducts and analyzes field measurements in Haltiala as part of his work in the stn MULTA project under the Carbon Action platform.

Xin Zhuang (MSc) is working as a doctoral student on the physiology of phloem transport. Particularly, she studies how stress impact carbon and water fluxes inside plant individuals. Previously she studied provenance/inheritance-based plant trait variation and plant invasion physiology. Xin is generally interested in plant sciences, ecology, biogeography and paleontology.

Asta Laasonen (MSc) is a doctoral researcher currently working on carbon monoxide exchange in different ecosystems. The research focuses on carbon monoxide fluxes measured by eddy covariance technique and chamber measurements.

Angelika Kübert is a postdoctoral researcher who studies the impact of climate and land use change on greenhouse gas emissions of boreal ecosystems. Her major research interest focuses on how ecosystems adapt and feedback to global change (such as climate change, eutrophication, and land use change) from the leaf to the ecosystem scale. Angelika is in particular interested in the role of plants in the water and carbon cycling of ecosystems, using amongst others flux monitoring and stable isotope techniques to unravel underlying mechanisms. During her doctorate and postdoc at the Universities of Freiburg and Arizona, she experienced firsthand what severe impact drought and nitrogen loading have on ecosystem services provided by grasslands and forests, two factors strongly linked to human activities. More about Angelika's research can be found at the University of Helsinki research portal.

Abin Thomas (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher working on land-atmosphere interactions related to the carbon and water cycles. He currently focuses on the available energy flux partitioning over the forest ecosystem and its feedback on the planetary boundary layer dynamics.

Eyrún Gyða Gunnlaugsdóttir (MSc) is a doctoral candidate in Atmospheric Science. The aim of her research is to improve our understanding of carbon cycle climate feedback processes and other greenhouse gas emissions in wetland ecosystems, using methodologies like the Eddy covariance technique for measuring ecosystem scale fluxes. Her previous research has been focused on environmental changes in higher latitudes, such as effects of climate change on carbon respiration from subarctic ecosystems dominated by biocrust.

Ellinoora Ekman (MSc) is a doctoral student and her work focuses on carbon cycling in peatland ecosystems. Specifically, in her PhD she studies the effect of rewetting on greenhouse gas exchange (special focus on methane) in a forestry-drained peatland as a measure to mitigate climate change. She also uses land surface model JSBACH and process-based model HIMMELI to study carbon cycling in different peatland forests. Her supervisors are Assoc. prof. Annalea Lohila, Doc. Maarit Raivonen and Dr. Xuefei Li.

Marta Fregona (MSc) is a doctoral student working on greenhouse gas exchanges between freshwater ecosystems and the atmosphere. Her research aims to reduce uncertainties in greenhouse gas budgets and trends and identify current and future impacts of climate change by using a one-dimensional lake model to simulate thermal and gas dynamics in freshwater ecosystems.