Team Member Frithjof Kuepper

Frithjof has recently been appointed to the Chair in Marine Biodiversity at the University of Aberdeen, after previous appointments at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS; initially as Lecturer and Head of the Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa from 2003 until late 2008, then as Reader).

Over the past 20 years, he has studied the chemical ecology, physiology, biochemistry and biodiversity of aquatic and marine plants/algae, especially in the context of biotic / abiotic stress and biogeochemical cycles, resulting in the publication of 60 peer-reviewed papers and 3 book chapters.

At pre-university level, he won international recognition with First Prizes at the European Community Contest for Young Scientists and at the Young Europeans' Environmental Research Competition. He received a French-German Ph.D. on brown algal stress responses and pathologies (1998-2001), working at the CNRS – Station Biologique de Roscoff (France), the University of Konstanz and at the Université de Paris-Sud XI / Orsay, supported by fellowships of the German Academic Merit Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) and of the European Commission (Marie Curie doctoral fellowship). He further studied the role of microbial metal chelators in marine ecosystems as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2001-3), where he remained a visiting professor in the Dept. of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB) until 2010.

Besides pathologies, he is interested in algal halogen metabolism and the atmospheric impact of algal halogen emissions. This work resulted in the first-ever description of an inorganic antioxidant in a living system, iodide in kelp, and was selected as one of the 100 Science Stories of the Year 2008 by DISCOVER Magazine.

He has conducted and participated in expeditions and field trips with a scope in phycological / marine research throughout the world, notably to the Shetland Islands, French Polynesia, Malaysia, Chile, Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Japan, California, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, the Canadian Arctic, and, most recently, Antarctica (Adelaide Island) and Ascension Island.

He has been a member of the Editorial Board of Marine Biotechnology from 2004-2010 and he currently is a member of the Editorial Board of Algae, the Peer Review College of the UK Natural Environment Research Council, and he was a member of the Council of the British Phycological Society from 2004-2007. Frithjof is fluent in English, Modern Greek, French, and German.

Within the framework of this project in Ascension, Frithjof (jointly with Kostas Tsiamis) is particularly interested in establishing an inventory of Ascension’s macroalgae and in understanding some of the major questions of algal benthic ecology around Ascension, including why coralline red algae (rather than corals) dominate much of the benthos, and whether deeper parts of the euphotic zone of Ascension’s benthos might harbour kelp populations.