About me
As a Research Council of Finland Academy Fellow, I am currently working on developing a method to measure the impact of fungal diversity on carbon persistence in soils. The aim of this research is to understand how this fungal diversity can help mitigate climate change by storing carbon. The knowledge generated by my research can be directly applied to empirical, modelling, and conceptual studies addressing how soil biodiversity impacts carbon sequestration efforts. In this highly collaborative research, I currently work with research partners all over the globe, from the University of Oxford in the UK to Dartmouth College in the United States to the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Western Sydney University (WSU) in Australia.
My research merges the fields of microbial and functional ecology, which began with my dissertation that developed a new theoretical framework to understand how changes in fungal phenotypes determine the role of fungi in their environment—the “symbiosis-to-saprotrophy continuum” (Aguilar-Trigueros et al., 2014)—and has continued to develop in my most recent published work on community assembly of fungi (Frew et al., 2025, 2024). Prior to receiving my Academy Fellowship, I was awarded a two-year Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung to investigate fungal functional traits in Finland and Australia, the results of which will help us better understand how urbanization and drought impact microbial diversity, and how the impact of this combination affects plant communities in both countries. My research program has taken me to Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, South Africa, and the US for conferences, seminars, workshops, and concentrated work with my network of collaborators to advance my Academy Fellowship research project.
Photo: Klaudia Cieplinska
Current positions & affiliations
Academy Research Fellow
Research Council of Finland
University of Jyväskylä
Jyväskylä, Finland
Department of Biological and Environmental Science
“Untangling the role of fungal network morphology in soil-carbon dynamics”
Visiting Researcher
University of New South Wales (UNSW)
Syndey, Australia
School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences
Visiting Researcher
Western Sydney University (WSU)
Syndey, Australia
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment
Visiting Researcher
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom
Department of Biology
“Measuring fungal networks to predict ecosystem functions”
Technical Co-Lead
“Advancing fungal dispersal ecology through traits and data harmonization”
Principal Investigator:
Professor Bala Chaudhary Dartmouth College, USA
Previous positions
Fyodor Lynen Research Fellow
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
“Understanding mycorrhizal phenotypes using functional traits”
Research hosts
Professor Otso Ovaskainen, Dr. Nerea Abrego
University of Jyväskylä
Jyväskylä, Finland
Professor Jeff Powell
Western Sydney University
Sydney, Australia
Data Synthesis Postdoctoral Research Fellow
“Bridging in Biodiversity Science”
Freie-Universität-Berlin
Berlin, Germany
Department of Chemistry, Biology, and Pharmacy
​Institute of Biology, Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research
Doctor of Natural Sciences
Freie-Universität-Berlin
Berlin, Germany
Division of Biology, Chemistry, & Pharmacy
Licenciatura in Biology
Universidad de El Salvador
San Salvador, El Salvador
Education and degrees
Fellowships & awards
​Academy Research Fellowship
Research Council of Finland
Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship
Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Germany
Australia-Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme
DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
Western Sydney University
Sydney, Australia
Freie Universität Berlin Research Alumni Program Award
Freie Universität-Berlin,
Germany
Doctoral Fellowship
DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
Freie-Universität-Berlin
Germany
ADELANTE Fellowship
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
Panama