Mahasweta Saha

I am a senior scientist and a chemical ecologist at PML with a passion to investigate ‘language of life’ in our oceans. Over the years I have developed an expertise in investigating chemically mediated communication between seaweeds and microbes under present and future oceans i.e. climate change stressors.

I completed my PhD in Algal Chemical Ecology at Helmholtz Centre of Ocean Research (GEOMAR), Germany with an international fellowship. Following the completion of my PhD and a family care break, I was awarded an international research grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) excellence cluster ‘Future Ocean’ to work on chemical ecology of invasive seaweeds at GEOMAR. During that time, I was awarded an international research fellowship to pursue my next research project on volatile info-chemistry of seaweeds at University of Essex, United Kingdom. This was followed by a short one-year research scientist position (80% FT) at GEOMAR before I joined PML.

I am an Associate Editor of 4 international journals including high ranking journals like Journal of Ecology. Additionally, I am leading the guest editing of two special topics for Frontiers in Marine Science. I am a reviewer for 19 peer-reviewed journals and sit on the grant review board of the British Ecological Society (BES), German Research Foundation (DFG), Flanders (Belgium) Research Foundation, and British Phycological Society (BPS). I have been the main convenor of sessions in 4 international conferences and jointly organized the BPS 2020 meeting. I am also an active science communicator across a variety of media and have extensive experience in successful communication of scientific ideas and results to the public. https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00067

I am committed to the development of the next generation of scientists, as supervisor and mentor to students and have supervised/co-supervised > 35 students to date. If you are interested to do an internship/undergraduate/Master/MRes/PhD project, feel free to contact me.

My research interests include:

Marine infochemicals
Fouling and anti-fouling of seaweeds and seagrasses
Dynamics in chemically mediated interactions under fluctuations of biotic and abiotic factors
Chemical ecology of invasive seaweeds
Volatilomics and volatile infochemistry
Seaweed pathogen interactions
Macrophytes under climate change