Roman Stocker

Short Bio:
Roman Stocker is a professor of environmental engineering at ETH Zurich. He is Italian, grew up in Nigeria, Yemen and Venice, and graduated from the University of Padova, where he studied engineering and fluid mechanics before completing his Ph.D. on the mathematical modeling and field observation of internal waves in lakes. From 2002 to 2005, he was an instructor in applied mathematics at MIT, where he then became an assistant professor in Environmental Engineering. In 2015, he moved to ETH. Roman pioneered a new approach to microbial ecology, based on the combination of microfluidics, video microscopy and mathematical modeling, which allowed him to address a long-standing challenge in oceanography: the need to study marine microbes quantitatively at the single-cell level and with explicit consideration of the highly dynamic processes that shape their lives. This microscale, mechanistic understanding is then used to better understand the myriad of ecological and biogeochemical impacts that microorganisms have at ocean scale. 

Roman’s research group, which brings together engineers, physicists, biologists and mathematicians, uses quantitative experiments in the laboratory and in the field in combination with individual-based and continuum models to understand microscale processes in the ocean, including microbial motility and sensing, the role of microbes in the marine carbon cycle, harmful algal blooms, coral disease, oil degradation, viral infection and bacteria–phytoplankton interactions. Roman has brought to the field a unique combination of (1) imaging and image analysis, revealing previously unseen processes; (2) new engineering tools, primarily microfabrication and 3D printing, providing unprecedented access to quantitative experiments on marine microbes; and (3) an intimate connection between observations and mathematical models, as necessary to identify general principles of microbial ecosystems. More recently, the group has expanded its interests to apply the same integration of different approaches to the study of ecohydraulics, where the effects of fluid flow and transport on aquatic organisms from invertebrates to fish are studied in order to understand the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on freshwater ecosystems. Roman’s work has frequently appeared in high-profile journals including Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been featured in popular media including the BBC, CNN and The New York Times.