Dr M.A. Glodowska (Martyna)
Assistant professor - Microbiology
Heyendaalseweg 135
6525 AJ NIJMEGEN
Dr. Martyna Glodowska is an environmental microbiologist and biogeochemist whose research focuses on the interactions between microorganisms, metals, and carbon cycling in natural and engineered environments. Her work combines microbiology, geomicrobiology, and biogeochemistry to understand how microbial processes control the transformation, mobility, and recovery of metals and metalloids.
A major research line of her work is the microbial recovery of critical metals from waste streams. She investigates how redox-active microorganisms and natural biogeochemical processes can be harnessed to selectively mobilize, separate, and recover valuable metals from complex materials such as electronic waste. Through the BioXtract project, she aims to develop sustainable, low-energy, and low-chemical-input technologies for circular metal recycling based on naturally occurring microbial mechanisms.
Her second main research theme focuses on microbial mechanisms controlling greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane cycling. She studies anaerobic methane-oxidizing microorganisms and their interactions with metals as electron acceptors, exploring how these processes regulate methane release from aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Her research further examines how environmental change, including sea-level rise, salinization, and climate-driven ecosystem shifts, affects microbial greenhouse gas production and consumption, with the goal of understanding feedbacks between microbial activity, global warming, and biogeochemical cycling.
Overall, Dr. Glodowska’s research bridges fundamental biogeochemistry and practical environmental solutions, advancing both sustainable critical-metal recovery and the understanding of microbial controls on greenhouse gas emissions in a changing world.