Thea Os Andersen

My research mainly focuses on microbial analysis of complex microbiomes, mainly during anaerobic digestion in biogas reactors and in ruminants.

I obtained my PhD in 2023 from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, under supervision of Prof. Phil B. Pope, where I investigated the microbial dynamics of the rumen microbiome to understand how community composition and function influence animal health, production parameters and greenhouse gas emissions, for the development of sustainable food systems. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Bioprocess Technology and Biorefining (BioRef) Research group under leadership of Prof. Svein Horn. Here, my work focuses on investigating the effects of novel substrates and inhibitory substances on the microbial community driving anaerobic digestion in lab-scale and large-scale biogas reactors. To achieve this, I apply metaomic approaches, including metagenomics and metaproteomics, to uncover the complex dynamics of these microbiomes for the development of sustainable energy solutions.

My research interests are mainly centered around sustainable energy, feed and food production, with a focus on microbial ecology and its role in optimizing these systems.