Flora Vincent
Flora Vincent is a group leader at EMBL Heidelberg’s developmental biology unit where she investigates interactions of phytoplankton with other marine microbes and its impact on our marine ecosystems. Flora's passion for marine biology began in her childhood, exploring the Mediterranean Sea and scuba diving from the age of eight. She obtained her PhD at the École Normale Supérieure under Chris Bowler, where she studied diatom interactions in the ocean using the Tara Oceans dataset. Tara Oceans is a global scientific research expedition aimed at studying marine ecosystems by collecting and analyzing samples from around the world on a modified sailing boat. At the Weizmann Institute, her postdoctoral research focused on single-cell algae during host-virus interactions, and she led a Tara Schooner expedition to study algal blooms. Flora's current work at EMBL particularly focuses on diatoms and their microbial interactions. She aims to understand how these interactions respond to climate change, which not only advances our understanding of marine ecosystems but also emphasizes the importance of microscopic organisms in global ecological processes. She is one of the main coordinators of the pan-European TREC Expedition and is committed to promoting diversity in science.