°®¶¹´«Ã½

Nicole Dubilier, Ph.D.

Nicole Dubilier, Ph.D.

Max-Planck-Institute for Marine °®¶¹´«Ã½

Nicole Dubilier, Ph.D., is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine °®¶¹´«Ã½ in Bremen, Germany, where she heads the Symbiosis Department. Her lab studies the diversity, ecology and evolution of symbioses between microorganisms and marine invertebrates from environments such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, as well as shallow-water coral reefs and seagrass meadows. Using a wide array of methods, ranging from single gene analyses to omics, whole organism physiology and in-situ experimental work, Dubilier and her team have revealed how beneficial interactions with microorganisms allow animals to thrive in nutrient poor environments.  

Dubilier moved from the U.S. to Germany as a teenager and gained her Ph.D. in marine zoology at the University of Hamburg. After a 2 year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, she joined the Max Planck Institute for Marine °®¶¹´«Ã½ in 1997. Dubilier's awards and honors include the Leibniz Prize (Germany's most prestigious research prize), a Gordon and Betty Moore Marine Microbial Initiative Investigator Award and a European Research Council Advanced Grant. She is an elected fellow of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the American Academy of °®¶¹´«Ã½, the European Academy of °®¶¹´«Ã½ and the Academy of Sciences and Humanities Hamburg. She was President of the International Society of Microbial Ecology from 2020-2022. She serves on many national and international advisory boards, scientific councils and other commissions of trust and is engaged in advancing gender equity in science.