Meet Claude Müller
“I like science and the freedom to explore. I think it is important to find ways to connect the scientific world and society and make them interact efficiently.”
Let’s meet Claude Müller, PhD student in the SAE group. Claude is from Switzerland and graduated in Agricultural Science at ETH Zurich. After working for the Federal Office of Agriculture for one year, he decided to start his PhD within ‘The Numerical Subsoil’ project to investigate how nutrient management in agriculture affects carbon storage and microbial communities in the subsoil in Switzerland and Kenya.
Why did you decide to do a PhD and come back to the SAE group?
“I like science and research and I want to contribute to the common knowledge by digging deep into a subject. After doing my master’s thesis in the SAE group, I decided to come back because I had the chance to work on both soil organic carbon and microbial communities for my PhD. At the same time, I am happy to be surrounded by nice and diverse people from whom I can learn many new things, like during our weekly team meetings.”
What are the positive aspects and the challenges of your PhD?
“I am happy to dedicate time to diverse tasks that I like, such as reading, data management and visualization. But I especially appreciate the flexibility to organize my work and the freedom to explore different ways of approaching my topic and be creative. We faced some challenges during the field work, and we had to live with uncertainty sometimes, but everything was solved in the end.”
You are familiar with the communication work that the SAE Greenhouse Lab does. What are your thoughts about it?
“It is important to find ways to improve sustainable agricultural practices, but we need to think about people as well. We should also focus on the communication between the scientific world and society, like Kenza is doing in the group. It is not easy, but it is necessary to reduce the gaps between the scientific results we produce and the real needs of human communities.”
What are your plans for the future of your career?
“I would like to be exactly in the middle between science and society, to help their interaction and transmit the knowledge. I would still work in the scientific research field because it is an environment I like. And why not.. in the future I could try to combine my passion for music with science and produce music with a meaning and a purpose.”
If you are curious to know more about Claude’s research, visit the project website.
You can contact him via e-mail for more questions:
