currently:

Ph.D. Student in the HAI (Helmholtz Alberta Initiative) Project: The HAI Project is a joint cooperation undertaking to bring the research power of the Helmholtz Association and the University of Alberta together to tackle the most pressing issues around ensuring the more sustainable use of Alberta's oil sands resource. The project comprises six inter-related research themes, which address key challenges encountered in making the entire life-cycle of oil sands production and utilization more sustainable. Because of the similarity of key issues these topics are also very germane to coal operations, which are of also great relevance to both Alberta and Germany.

The project at the Geomicrobiology Group at the University of Potsdam is part of research theme "Remediation, Recultivation and Reclamation of Oil Sands and Coal Mining Disturbances" and focuses on the role of microbial activity in the newly developing soils, with special emphasis on the rhizosphere. The work is carried out in close collaboration with the Organic Geochemistry Group of the GFZ Potsdam. Research at GFZ will focus on the geochemical characterisation of the natural organic matter, as well as the carbon and hydrogen isotopic composition of individual hydrocarbons in order to characterize the microbial community and its relevant metabolic processes.

The Geomicrobiology Group at the University of Potsdam focuses on direct measurements of turnover processes by using either stable or radioisotopes, thereby tracing pathways of specific compounds through the chain of biogeochemical transformations. Standard geochemical analyses (IC,HPLC, GC) of dissolved porewater compounds are used to complement the isotopic analyses. Additionally, molecular biological techniques are used to characterize the microbial community.

in the past: 

Influence of vegetation, land use and climate on hydrogen isotope compositions of long-chain n-alkanes and distribution of tetraether membrane lipids in Ethiopian soils - A proxy evaluation - (Diploma thesis) 

Talks:

Lappé, M., Kallmeyer, J., A cell extraction method for oily sediments, 1st HAI Science Forum 2011, Edmonton, Canada

Posters:

Rethemeyer, J., Lappé, M., Schouten, S., Boeckx, P., Schefuß, E., Land use and climatic effects on hydrogen isotope compositions of long-chain n-alkanes and distribution of tetraether lipids in soils, IMOG 2011, Interlaken, Switzerland

Lappé, M., Kallmeyer, J., A cell extraction method for oily sediments, ISSM 2011, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Publications:

Lappé, M. and Kallmeyer, J., 2011. A cell extraction method for oily sediments. Frontiers in Microbiology 2:233. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2011.00233.

Rethemeyer, J., Lappé, M., Boeckx, P., Schouten, S., Schefuß, E. Influence of vegetation, land use and climate on hydrogen isotope compositions of long-chain n-alkanes and distribution of tetraether membrane lipids in Ethiopian soils. In progress.