Matthias Rillig is a professor of ecology at the Institute of Biology of Freie Universität Berlin and director of the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB). His work currently focuses on effects of microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems, and on understanding the joint impacts of multiple global change drivers. His team’s research explores the effects of factors of global environmental change on soils, including its functions and biodiversity.
After studying biology at Universität Kaiserslautern and Edinburgh, he earned his PhD in Ecology from University of California Davis/ San Diego State University, and after a postdoc at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, he was professor of microbial ecology at University of Montana, Missoula for 9 years.