Dr. Carolina Merino Guzmán
Associate researcher

Dr. Carolina Merino is a Junior Research Scientist in the field of microbiology with a special focus in the interaction on soil mineralogy and microorganisms. She fulfilled her PhD in Natural Resources Sciences in 2015. From that time she works in the laboratory of Conservation and Dynamic of Volcanic Soils at Universidad de La Frontera. Her career started in topic such as the effect of climate change on microbial carbon/nitrogen cycling in forest soils. She is now focusing on microbiome studies in extreme environments, investigating the diversity and functionality of the ecosystems. She is skill in advanced microbiological tools, as well as in molecular techniques for diversity and activity of soil microorganisms. Currently she working in several projects such FONDECYT (National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development), INACH (Chilean Antarctic Institute) and NEXER (Network for Extreme Environments Research) to  investigate the metal interactions between microorganism and  soil organic matter. She belongs to international and national networks such Co-researcher in two EarthShape project, funded by DFG (German Research Foundation), SPP 1803. She also belongs to the modeling group funded by the ESSA Foundation adaptation to climate change and the European Earth-System Model community.

Research lines

• Carbon sequestration in the soil

• Soil chemistry and microbiology

• Isotope based studies in soil-plants systems

Contact
Carolina.merino@ufrontera.cl