Michael Wagner - Biography#

Michael Wagner earned a Master’s degree in microbiology in 1992 (Diploma grade with distinction; 1.0) and received his PhD in 1995 (summa cum laude) from the Technische Universität (TU) Munich, Germany. Subsequently, he did a PostDoc with Dave Stahl and Bruce Rittman at Northwestern University, USA, financed by a German Research Foundation (DFG) research fellowship, before returning in 1996 to TU Munich as group leader. There, he obtained his habilitation and became associate professor. In 2003, he accepted a full professorship in Microbial Ecology at the University of Vienna and established the Division of Microbial Ecology. He served as division and department head (2003–2018) and vice dean of the Faculty of Life Science (2005–2010). In 2019, he became founding director of the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (full faculty status; about 250 members) at the University of Vienna, and he is the Centre’s vice-head since 2021. Researchers at the Centre have received 9 ERC grants and five of them were recognized as highly cited scientists 2023. Since 2019, he is also distinguished professor (20%) at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Michael Wagner has ample experience in leading large research projects, units, and societies. He is the director of one of the five Clusters of Excellence entitled “Microbiomes drive Planetary Health” (direct and indirect funds 35 Mio €) funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. His research team was also funded by an ERC Advanced Grant (2.5 million €) and the Wittgenstein award (1.5 million €) of the FWF. 24 of his former PostDocs and PhD students hold permanent or tenure-track positions in academia, including 14 professorships in 7 countries.

Michael Wagner served as incoming president, president, and past president of the International Society of Microbial Ecology and was responsible for organizing the ISME-15 meeting in Seoul, Korea, in 2014 (1,600 participants) and was strongly involved in organizing ISME-14 in Copenhagen and ISME-16 in Montreal. Furthermore, he was head of the local organizing committee for the ISME-11 in Vienna in 2006 (2,000 participants). He was a member of the Program and Steering Committees of the Microbe 2017 Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM, ~10,000 participants).