giulia.ghedini at monash.edu
​@giuliaghedini.bsky.social
​Dr Giulia Ghedini, Group Leader
Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences
Monash University, VIC, Australia

Previous positions:
  • PhD Ecology University of Adelaide, Australia with Sean Connell 2013-2016
  • Postdoc, Monash University, Australia with Dustin Marshall 2016-2018
  • Australian Research Council DECRA fellow, Monash University 2019-2021
  • Group Leader, Gulbenkian Institute, Lisbon, Portugal 2022-2025
Olivia Berkelmans, Honours student
Olivia is a biology honours student at Monash University, with a focus on plant sciences and ecology. She started honours under Giulia Ghedini, Mike McDonald and Dustin Marshall in 2026, and her honours project involves investigating and measuring how environmental differences such as temperature and available resources affect the population growth of microbial communities.
Monique Purton, BIO3990 Biology in Action 
Monique is an undergraduate student in Ecology and Conservation Biology at Monash University. She is interested in marine ecology and environmental change, and will be undertaking a research project in the lab investigating how algal community composition responds to changing environmental conditions.  ​
anna.heinrichs at gimm.pt
Dr Anna Lena Heinrichs, Postdoctoral researcher
Anna Lena joined the lab in 2024 to investigate if and how the plasticity of phytoplankton metabolic rates can be linked to community stability. She is an aquatic ecologist focusing on phytoplankton and how environmental changes shape their responses. Anna Lena did her PhD in the Plankton Ecology Lab at the University of Oldenburg (Germany, 2020-2023) where she studied how temperature and the resources light and nutrients interactively influence the performance and morphological traits of phytoplankton. 
daniela.almeida at gimm.pt
Daniela Almeida, PhD Candidate
Daniela joined the lab in 2023, first as a research technician and then as a PhD student. She obtained an international Masters degree in Marine Biology, at the University of Algarve. She developed a specific interest for ecosystem conservation and climate change studies during her master thesis in the UK, at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Her PhD aims at understanding how competition affects phytoplankton metabolism and the consequences for communities
 Lab Alumni

​Simas Jasiūnas - joined the lab as a master student in 2024 during his Ms. in Biotechnology at the Instituto Superior Técnico of Lisbon. In the lab, he worked on a project to improve image classification of our phytoplankton cells (and not only!).

Ricardo Estevens - joined the lab in 2023 as a lab technician and in 2026 started a PhD at Nova University in Lisbon.
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Charlotte Briddon - joined the lab for a 2 year postdoc where she led experimental evolution work to understand more about the mechanics of why certain phytoplankton are better competitors and how competition influences different biological processes within species. Now Postdoc at Uni Bristol.
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​​Aurora Menéndez García - Aurora joined the lab to study how coevolution affects community functioning for her Master thesis project, part of the International Master in Marine Biological Resources (IMBRSea), which she completed in July 2024. Now PhD student Uni Helsinki.
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Moritz Klaassen - Moritz was the Laboratory Manager of the Functional Ecology group in 2022-2023, having  a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Oldenburg in Germany and a master’s degree in Marine Biological Resources from Ghent University in Belgium. Moritz is now doing a PhD in ecological modelling at MARE-Madeira.

Teresa Nobre - Teresa joined the lab for six months in 2022 as a research assistant, after a degree in marine biology from the University of Plymouth and a master’s degree in tropical aquatic ecology from the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) and Bremen University. She was instrumental in setting up the lab and we are very happy that she is now pursuing her dream PhD at the University of Western Australia.

Mark Deleja - Mark joined the lab as a summer school student in 2022 with a MSc in Marine Ecology. Mark led the project: "Assessing how changes in energy fluxes with population density affect competitive outcomes in phytoplankton".

​Carolina Rattner - Carolina graduated in Biology with a specialization in  Evolutionary and Developmental Biology from the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL) in 2022. She joined the lab for an internship between November and December 2022 to kickstart her professional career and gain experience before continuing her academic courses. 
Students supervised as postdoc:
Jiaye Qin - BcSc(Honours), Monash University 2020. Thesis: "Responses to competition in marine phytoplankton: an assessment of the underlying mechanisms".
Melanie Lovass - BcSc(Honours), Monash University 2019. Thesis: "Why do metabolic rates decline with an increase in population density?" paper