Frederik Bak

Frederik Bak is an Assistant Professor in Microbial Ecology at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. He also holds a visiting researcher position at the Austrian Institute of Technology AIT, Austria (2023-2025). His academic journey at the University of Copenhagen spans from undergraduate studies through postdoctoral research to his current faculty position.

Dr. Bak received his educational foundation at the University of Copenhagen with a BSc in Environmental Chemistry (2007-2011), followed by an MSc in Environmental Chemistry and Health (2011-2013), and culminated with a PhD in Microbiology focused on "Microbiota in preferential flow paths" (2016-2019).

As a microbial ecologist, Dr. Bak's research centers on plant-microbe interactions, particularly in wheat systems. His work investigates how microbial communities assemble on plant roots, the functional roles of seed bacteria during germination, and whether rhizosphere microbiomes can be predicted based on soil history and used for yield prediction. He also explores microbial ecology in subsurface clayey till environments and aims to cultivate previously uncultivated bacterial strains from subsurface environments. His approach integrates molecular techniques with computational methods, leveraging amplicon and shotgun metagenomics sequencing, bioinformatics, machine learning, and multivariate statistics.

Dr. Bak's publication record demonstrates a strong focus on plant-microbe-nematode interactions, rhizosphere ecology, and microbial community dynamics in agricultural systems. His recent work shows increasing integration of computational approaches with traditional microbiological methods, reflecting his commitment to cross-disciplinary research. The research spans fundamental microbial ecology questions while maintaining strong connections to agricultural applications.

• Article of the year 2019 FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Dr. Bak serves as co-supervisor for one PhD student and has previously supervised bachelor's and master's students. He teaches the Applied Microbiology course at the MSc level. During his postdoctoral period (2019-2022), he was an active member of the Department Research Committee and the Post-doc association in the Department, demonstrating his engagement with departmental governance and community building.

His current INTERACT project has developed a synthetic community from wheat rhizosphere to study plant-microbe interactions in controlled conditions. Dr. Bak collaborates extensively with data scientists, mathematicians, and soil scientists to develop new analytical approaches for understanding complex microbial ecosystems.