Group Members
Jump to staff, master and bachelor students, alumni, lab visitors.
Staff
Leo Minini
topic: Priming of the macroalgae immune memory – cellular understanding and application for crop protection
PhD Student
email: leo.minini@nord.no
Jørgen Hetzler
topic: Seaweed Scaffolds for Cultivated Octopus (Seanergies project)
Researcher
email: jorgen.a.hetzler@nord.no
Anne M.L. Nilsen
topic: The epigenetic basis of priming as a kelp engineering technology to enhance yield and secure production under environmental challenges
PhD student
email: anne.m.nilsen@nord.no
Ananya Khatei
topic: Computational exploitation of brown algal genomes
PhD Student
email: ananya.khatei@nord.no
Master and Bachelor Students
Christian Semb
Bachelor Thesis
email: christian.semb@yahoo.no
topic: Climate change impact on macrophytes
Visitors and interns
Annika Hagmüller
Internship 4 months June–October 2026, from University of Tübingen (Germany)
email: annika.hagmueller@gmail.com
topic: Immune Responses and Tissue Properties of the Sugar Kelp (Saccharina latissima) Under Nutrient × Temperature and Elicitor Stress
Alumni
Clement Gauci
2021-2025
Role: PhD student
topic: Kelp priming as a bio-engineering strategy to enhance performances under environmental challenges
Griffin Hill
2022-2025
Role: PhD student
topic: Aquaculture in a changing climate -identifying future mariculture opportunities through coupled species distribution modeling and genetic diversity analyses
Former visitors, BSc/ MSc students
Visitors
Arthur Roussel, Internship 4 months Feb-May 2026, from Brest University (France); Topic–Isolation of a marine bacterium that produces pink spots on kelp aquaculture hatchery spools
Berat Tolga Koc, Internship 1.5 months June/July 2025, from Bilkent University (Turkey); Topic–Fouling resistence of cultivated macroalgae (Related to Mabit project 2024-199)
Master students
Sara Roosvall, 2024–2026, The influence of light, temperature, salinity, and UV-radiation stress on the phlorotannin content and bioactivity in brown macroalgae: Saccharina latissima, Ascophyllum nodosum, and Fucus vesiculosus
Pia Dittmer, 2025–2026, Towards increased climate change resilience. Future-proofing conservation and restoration approaches for arctic kelp, with a case study on temperature priming of Alaria esculenta
Göran Thomann, 2024–2026, From Sea to Shelf: Evaluation of Antioxidant Extracts from Alaria esculenta - A Methodological Basis for Future Food-Preservation Applications
Leo Minini, 2024–2025, Potential and Challenges of Intra-Regional Breeding for Higher Growth and Heat Tolerance in Sugar Kelp (Saccharina latissima)
Johana Jaramillo Guzman, 2022-2023, Effects of Kelp Farming in Norway - Guidelines and advances towards eDNA as a tool to monitor biodiversity in kelp farms
Yende Adele Eugene, 2022-2023, DNA methylation within Saccharina latissima - Testing the ability of thermal priming to confer an epigenetic memory response within the chloroplast methylome of Saccharina latissima
Grete Thuv Tjønndal, 2021-2022, Upscaling macroalgae aquaculture production - Sustainable innovation principles applied by Norwegian stakeholders
Anne Margrete Leiros Nilsen, 2021-2022, The chloroplast methylome of the kelp Saccharina latissima Is population specific, and altered by laboratory cultivation
Bachelor Students
Matthew Vijayavarathan, 2025, A critical overview of seaweed farming on the Faroe Islands and the challenges it faces to being environmentally sustainable
John Michael Alcantara, 2024-2025, Fluorescein diacetate and propidium iodide viability assays illuminate thermal tolerance of Saccharina latissima gametophytes
Oskar Holte, 2021, Kelp cultivation effects, mitigation, and use
Lena Götz, Epigenetic variation in the a seagrass clones
Milena Milojic, 2024, Bachelor internship on kelp genomics and priming