Dr Elze Hesse

About me:

I am a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow based in the Environment & Sustainability Institure. I am interested in the ecological and evolutionary drivers underpinning microbial cooperation and exploitation. Following my early work on plant life history evolution, I became fascinated with the role of microbes in determining ecosystem and human health. This led me to move to the University of Exeter in Cornwall as a research fellow, where I developed an independent research program applying evolutionary theory to predict the consequences and trajectory of environmental challenges on cooperation, both within and across trophic levels. Understanding when and why different species cooperate allows us to predict how bacteria explore their environment and to harness these interactions to our own benefit.

• Species interactions and community dynamics

• Cooperation

• Experimental evolution

• Life-history evolution

• Plant–microbe interactions

• Social Evolution of metal-remediation

2006 – PhD Evolutionary Ecology (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

2001 – MSc Ecology (University of Groningen & Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

2000 – BSc Ecology (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)

2021: UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus.

2013 – 2021: PDRF, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus.

2009 – 2012: PDRA, University of Leiden, The Netherlands.

2008 – 2009: Career break.

2008: Botanical consultant for BHP Billiton & Société des Mines de Fer de Guinée (July-Sept).

2006 – 2007: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) research fellow, University of Oxford.