Antje Boetius

Antje Boetius (born 5 March 1967) is a German marine biologist. She is a professor of geomicrobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, University of Bremen. Boetius received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in March 2009 for her study of sea bed microorganisms that affect the global climate. She has been the director of Germany's polar research hub, the Alfred Wegener Institute, since 2017. In May 2025 she became president and CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Boetius was the first person to describe anaerobic oxidation of methane, She has also suggested such life forms may be able to reduce the rate of climate change in future. Boetius also won the Erna Hamburger Prize in 2019.

Career Boetius received her biology degree from the University of Hamburg in 1992. Prior to undertaking graduate research, she spent time at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Southern California, where she drew inspiration from marine microbiologists including Farooq Azam. She earned a doctor of philosophy (PhD) from the University of Bremen in 1996,

Boetius joined the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology as a postdoctoral researcher, and became an assistant professor in 2001 she is also leader of the HGF-MPG Bridge Group on Deep Sea Ecology and Technology

Boetius is also engaged in research and conversations around "issues of deep-sea ecosystems, biodiversity, and our vision of how to live with a future ocean". Of deep-sea mining research published in the journal Science Advances in April 2020, Boetius has said "our experiment really shows that such physical processes will stop animals and microbes from returning to repopulate that habitat" 2025 Foreign Member of the Royal Society 2019 Erna Hamburger Prize 2018 Environment Prize (German Environment Foundation) 2018 Vernadsky Medal, European Geosciences Union 2009 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize

Personal life Boetius grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, and took frequent vacations to the seaside as a child.

Her grandfather Eduard Boëtius worked as a navigator on the Hindenburg zeppelin and was one of the few surviving crew members of the Lakehurst disaster.