Being president of an international society will be a new challenge for Gabriele Berg, especially as the importance of microbial ecology is becoming ever more apparent at global level. When asked what her presidency will focus on in the next two years, she said:

“In recent years, microbial ecology has produced some amazing, groundbreaking results and novel concepts. Now is the time to translate these into solutions for One Health, Planetary Health, the protection of endangered microbes/microbiomes, food security and combating antimicrobial resistance!”

In New Zealand, Raquel Peixoto handed the Society’s presidency to Gabriele Berg during the ISME20 Closing Ceremony. Her first official duty was to announce the location of ISME22, which will be held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 2030. The new ISME Executive Board consists of Gabriele Berg as ISME President, Max Häggblom as Vice President, Raquel Peixoto as Past President, and Joana Falcão Salles as Treasurer.

Want to learn more about Gabriele and her vision for microbial ecology? Read our interview with her when she first joined the ISME Executive Board here.

Gabriele Berg studied biology, ecology, and biotechnology at the universities in Rostock and Greifswald in Germany. She obtained her Ph.D. in microbiology from Rostock University in 1995. In 2005, she became a full professor in environmental biotechnology at Graz University of Technology in Austria. In 2021 received an additional professorship in Potsdam together with a position at Leibniz ATB  in Germany. Since 2025, she has been a Max Planck fellow. Her interests are focused on microbiome research and biotechnology. She is one of the most cited researchers in microbiology worldwide and has received several awards.