Category: Meet the team

Meet Komi: from rice paddy fields to the rainforest

Hello everyone, my name is Shujiro Komiya. Please feel free to call me Komi by my nickname.

I’m a postdoc in the Tall Tower Atmospheric Gas Measurements Research group of Dr. Lavric at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. I studied at Meiji University in Tokyo in Japan from the bachelor to doctorate programs. During my M.Sc. and Ph.D. studies, I built up micrometeorological and automated chamber systems for measuring fluxes of greenhouse gases. With those, I investigated methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) dynamics in rice paddy fields in temperate Japan and tropical Thailand.

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Meet the team

Meet Marco: Properties of aerosols

Marco stands atop the ATO tall tower.

Hi all! My name is Marco Aurélio Franco, but you can call me Marco =)! I’m Ph.D. student of Physics at the University of São Paulo (USP), in São Paulo, Brazil, under the supervision of Prof. Paulo Artaxo. Since October 2019, I’m doing part of my Ph.D. project at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, in Mainz in the group of Dr. Christopher Pöhlker. I studied Physics at the Federal University of São Carlos and I obtained my Master’s Degree at the University of São Paulo in São Carlos.

Back then, I did my research in Plasma Physics applied to the analysis of carbon and nutrients in soils.

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Meet the team

Meet Stefan: reactive gases above the rainforest

Stefan Wolff stands atop the ATTO tall tower in the warm glow of the evening sun. Behind him the Amazon rainforest strechtes to the horizon. You can see the Uatuma river glinting in the distance between the trees.
© Paulo Brando

Hello, my name is Stefan Wolff! I’m a meteorologist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and I have been working on the ATTO project since 2010.

I heard about the Amazon rainforest for the first time in my childhood. From that moment on I was really enthusiastic about this abundant ecosystem and passionate to get to know it. Several years later, in 2005, I did an internship at the UFSCAR University in the state of São Paulo. Afterward, I had my first opportunity to get in direct touch with the Amazon. Five years later I got a great opportunity to join the newborn ATTO project.

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Meet the team

Meet Akima: Detecting one in a billion

Hi, my name is Akima!

I studied meteorology at the University of Frankfurt. Back then I realized that I would love to work in the field instead of only sitting at my desk. When I was looking for options after graduation, there was an opportunity to participate in the ATTO project. I thought this was a fantastic chance to combine my background with exciting fieldwork and so I became PhD student at MPI-C in Mainz.

As you can see in the picture I have the opportunity to travel to Brazil as part of my PhD. We visit the ATTO site regularly to maintain and develop our measurement setup.

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Meet the team

Meet Pedro: Taking a close look at plant stomata

Pedro climbing in the Amazonian trees to collect data

Hello everyone, my name is Pedro.

I am a biologist and a lover of the world of plants. I first realized this during my undergrad. As an intern at the Institute of Botany of São Paulo, I participated in an ozone bio-monitoring project. Basically, it was all about exposing sensitive plants to this pollutant, ozone, in several locations around an oil refinery. After a few days of exposure, I looked at the leaves and checked if and to what degree they have injured due to the ozone. With long-term monitoring, our group could then also get an idea about the air quality with respect to ozone at different locations and how that changes over time.

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Meet the team