About me

I am a biogeochemist, with an interest in understanding the nuts and bolts of microbes that emit greenhouse gases. In the early days of my PhD, I was introduced into the world of methanogens – microbes that produce methane – which kickstarted a journey that continues to this day. Methanogens had a key role in shaping Earth’s climate throughout its history and are predicted to drive further global warming in the near and distant future as well. Having firm roots in both biology and Earth sciences I aim to deliver new insights on what makes methanogens tick, and how we can identify and learn about their activity across various scales.

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher working on a collaborative project between the groups of Dipti Nayak (Department of Molecular and Cell Biology) and Daniel Stolper (Department of Earth and Planetary Science) at the University of California, Berkeley, since 2022. I study anaerobic microbes using molecular genetics, metabolic modeling, and high-resolution stable isotope mass spectrometry. My research here in Berkeley is supported by the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship and by the Next-gen Environmental Sustainability Postdoc Award from the Energy Research Initiative.

In my PhD I worked with Itay Halevy at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where I developed theoretical tools to study methane biogeochemistry which elucidated the relations between microbes that produce and consume methane and the isotopic signatures that they leave behind.

Check out my research interests, list of publications, Google Scholar page, Linkedin profile, or contact me at ja dot gropp at gmail.com.