Vincent Gauci makes discoveries on how carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and peatlands function and interact with the atmosphere. He has expertise in quantifying the exchange of powerful greenhouse gases in these ecosystems and agroecosystems and in how they respond to global environmental change. He has a particular interest in the ecosystem/atmosphere exchange of methane. He is the former director of the UK Methane Network and is now a Professorial Fellow at the University of Birmingham School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR). He has worked and led projects across the Andes, Amazon, Borneo, and Sumatra as well as many other locations.

James McDonald and his research team apply a combination of cultivation-based and molecular approaches to characterize and engineer both host-associated and environmental microbiomes, to understand their role in host health status, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem function. Current research focuses on microbiome engineering approaches to address key global challenges such as waste management and sustainable fuel production (using microbiomes to produce biofuels and biogas), and in combating tree disease (engineering microbial communities for disease suppression and health promotion). McDonald is also interested in integrating knowledge on microbiome engineering and microbiome science across diverse systems (e.g. plants, humans, industrial systems) to identify key scientific principles that underpin microbiome assembly and function.

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Yin Chen studied (BSc/ MSc) at Tsinghua University (1998-2005) and obtained his PhD at the University of Warwick in 2008. Shortly after a two-year postdoc, he was awarded a NERC independent fellowship, focusing on one carbon compounds, particularly microbial metabolism of methane and methylamines. He soon became interested in how microbes adapt to nutrient stress in a variety of ecosystems, from the oceans to freshwater lakes and coastal sediments. His research integrates multi-layered omics to uncover novel one-carbon metabolism in microbes. He was awarded an ERC consolidator grant in 2016 and an ERC advanced grant in 2023. He was a senior editor of Microbiome (2016-2020) and an editorial board member of the ISME Journal (2018-2024). He serves as a panel member for several funding agencies nationally and internationally.

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