Maarja Öpik will continue as director of the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences

At the meeting on 8 December, the council of the University of Tartu Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences re-elected Professor in Molecular Ecology Maarja Öpik as director of the institute.

Maarja Öpik has been at the head of the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences since 2020, and her third three-year term of office will begin on 1 January 2026. Öpik defended her doctoral thesis in plant ecology and ecophysiology at the University of Tartu in 2004. Since 2021, she has worked as a Professor in Molecular Ecology at the university.

In her research, Maarja Öpik focuses on soil ecosystems, studying the biodiversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and their relationships with plant biodiversity. Besides fundamental research, she leads applied projects focused on the sustainable use of agricultural soils and the restoration of soil ecosystems.

Last week, Maarja Öpik was elected a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences in the field of soil science. She has also been a member of the Research and Development Council, advising the Estonian government. In 2016, Maarja Öpik and her colleagues were awarded the national research award in geology and biology.

In January this year, Maarja Öpik took up the post of editor-in-chief of the prestigious plant biology journal New Phytologist. She also serves as a member of the editorial boards of international scientific journals IMA Fungus, MycoKeys and Fungal Ecology.

Maarja Öpik said that the keywords for her new term are next generation, financial stability and ecological literacy. “Addressing the next generation is important at all levels – from ensuring that a sufficient number of students enrol to extending the line of prospective leaders in the institute as well as in its departments and chairs. To maintain and further raise the high standard of research and teaching, it is necessary to diversify the sources of project funding and partners, and engage more than before in business collaboration and issues of national importance,” Öpik said.

According to Maarja Öpik, the teaching and research of the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences in the field of environment is vitally necessary. “We are already bringing quite a lot of knowledge to society, but we need to do even more, and do it even more smartly.”