Principal Investigator
Priya Ramakrishna is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at EPFL – the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and leads the Plant Adaptation Laboratory (PAL).
She holds a B.E. in Biotech from India, with M.Sc. in Plant Genetics and PhD in Plant Biology with Prof. Ive De Smet and Prof. Malcolm Bennett from the University of Nottingham, UK. She completed postdocs with Prof. David Salt at Nottingham, and Prof. Marie Barberon at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. She was then a scientist at the Laboratory of Biological Geochemistry at EPFL with Prof. Anders Meibom, where she led the first application of newly developed cryo-elemental imaging on plant tissues to understand salinity stress responses in plants. The work revealed new insights plant salinity stress coping strategy and is the main research focus of her current lab. In 2025, she was appointed Assistant Professor at EPFL, where her lab focuses on the cellular basis of plant adaptation to environmental stress.
Lab members
Emylène Ostertag is a laboratory technician specialized in biology. Since January 2025, she works at LGB-EPFL, while also providing support to PAL as our Biosafety officer. After her apprenticeship at EPFL in environmental biotechnology, she did neuroscience research for 3 years at CHUV. She currently studies symbiosis and function of marine and terrestrial ecosystem and is 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!
Postdoc
Francesca Cazzaniga is a postdoc with a strong background in molecular biology and genetics. She obtained her degree in Biotechnology from the University of Milan and a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology from Sapienza University of Rome. Throughout her scientific journey, she has been driven by a common goal: Understanding how plants respond to stress conditions, with a particular focus on salt stress during her doctoral studies. At PAL she investigates in greater depth how plant roots adapt to saline environments. Passionate about molecular biology, genetics, and genome engineering applied to plant systems, she is equally fascinated by biodiversity and nature conservation.
Outside the lab, she enjoys outdoor adventures, especially those involving plenty of snow and skiing.
PhD
Michelle Yang is a Doctoral Assistant at PAL. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cell, and Development Biology B.Sc. and Public Affairs B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduation, she worked in José Dinneny’s lab at Stanford University as a research assistant for one and a half years on a synthetic biology project aimed to uncover the regulatory process of root hair formation, and a biodiversity project aimed to identify other potential model plant organisms. Moving on to her own project, she wishes to further understand the salinity signalling and regulatory pathway. Aside from being in the lab, she is equally into the elements, nature, and law.
In free time, Michelle enjoys climbing, hiking, watching movies, and discovering new restaurants.
Masters and project students
Project student
Feryel El Phil is pursuing her Master’s in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at EPFL (where she also earned her Bachelor’s degree), specializing in Environmental Sensing and Computation alongside Biological and Chemical Processes in Environmental Engineering.
She is passionate about water bioremediation, aquatic and terrestrial ecology, and leveraging advanced sensing methods to monitor ecosystems. Interested in understanding mechanisms influencing our daily lives through data analysis and experiments and predicting how future environmental processes will shape our planet.
Outside the lab, she enjoys social dancing, martial arts, meeting new people, cooking, and exploring new places all over the world.
Alumni
Alice Giorgetti was a summer intern at PAL on a joint project with SOIL lab-Sion, EPFL. She is about to finish her master’s in Environmental Science and Engineering at EPFL and spent the summer with us on studying impact of Fe and NaCl stress in plant-soil interactions.
Paula Mogrovejo was a visiting Masters student in Integrative Biology and Plant
Physiology – Biomass Engineering for the Bioeconomy at AgroParisTech. who completed She did her Master’s project at PAL and successfully defended her thesis in June 26 and will start her PhD at LGPM (CentraleSupelec, Universite Paris-Saclay) in Pomacle.
Lucien Schmidt was a joint intern with SKIL-EPFL and helped us build an automated root imaging prototype which the lab is having great fun with!
Iarantsoa Ramanoelina
Master’s student in Life Sciences Engineering.
Joint project with EPFL Center for Imaging:
Automated Detection of Organelles in Plant Cells.
Lou Sarah Blassel
Marco Marino Hildebrand
Inès Fragnière
Bachelor students in Environmental Science and Engineering.
SKILs group project:
Back to the roots – Root imaging and automated plate phenotyping platform.