About us

Plant Adaptation Lab (PAL)

The Plant Adaptation Lab (PAL) is a newly established lab supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation Starting Grant (SNF-StG). It is a part of the Institute of Environmental Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland. 

We are a growing team of motivated scientists engaged in cutting-edge research on mineral nutrition and environmental stress adaptation plants. 


The Team

Principal Investigator

Priya Ramakrishna is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering and leads the Plant Adaptation Laboratory (PAL) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, CH.

Her group aims to understand the fine-tuned mechanisms employed by plants to adapt to abiotic stress such as salinity.

Dr. Ramakrishna was a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Biological Geochemistry at EPFL from 2022 – 2025 where she pioneered the first application of the newly developed CryoNanoSIMS ion imaging pipeline on plant tissues. The work provided novel insights into subcellular salinity stress coping strategies of plants and forms the core area of research in her lab in addition to studying mineral nutrition of plants. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Biotech from India, and a Masters and PhD in Plant Biology from the University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Ramakrishna was awarded the prestigious Swiss National Science Foundation Starting Grant to lead an independent research group to explore the cellular adaptation strategies of plants in response to salinity stress.

Emylène Ostertag is a laboratory technician specialized in biology. After her apprenticeship in a research laboratory of environmental biotechnology at EPFL, she did 3 years of neuroscience research at the CHUV. Since January 2025, she is working with the LGB at EPFL and collaborates with the Dr. Priya Ramakrishna to study symbiosis and functionalities of some marine and terrestrial ecosystem.  Skilled in molecular biology, immunology, microbiology and proteomics, she is also passionate about nature, technology, sports and spirituality. She loves to laugh and meet people from all around the world !

Job openings

If you are interested to know more about our work please contact us at: priya.ramakrishna@epfl.ch

Want to join our growing lab? Check-out the current opportunities and apply!  

We also welcome applications from Master’s students. 

We are hiring. Come join us!

PhD position in the lab. See details below and apply soon!

Postdoc position in the lab. See details below!