Professor Dr Marcel van der Heijden
Prof Dr Marcel van der Heijden is undeniably one of the world's top experts in soil science. He has spent his entire career working to better understand how what is living in the soil affects and can improve how crops grow. He is currently leading research projects to further our knowledge in the subject while working simultaneously as a professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, as well as a guest professor at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He also is a leader of the Institute for Sustainability Sciences within the Swiss government’s Agricultural Research Department, Agroscope in Zurich, Switzerland. His current and past research focuses on the role that soil biodiversity plays as a determinant of plant biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, with particular interest in microbial diversity, symbiotic associations between plants and soil microbes, plant-soil interactions, ecosystem sustainability and the development of ecological farming systems. A full list of his publications is available here.
