Mariana Hill Cruz

Mariana Hill Cruz is a Researcher at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, within the FB2: Marine Biogeochemistry division and the FE Biogeochemical Modelling department. She has been actively contributing to marine ecosystem research since 2022, focusing on modeling higher trophic levels and their interactions with environmental dynamics in key upwelling systems such as the Humboldt Current and the Western Baltic Sea.

She holds a PhD in Biological Oceanography from Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (2022), an MSc in Biological Oceanography (2018), and a BSc in Marine Science from The University of Western Australia (2015).

Her research interests center on ecosystem modelling, particularly using the OSMOSE model coupled with biogeochemical frameworks. She investigates fish population dynamics, mesopelagic biomass, habitat suitability, and the impacts of climate and fishing pressures. Her work integrates ecological, biogeochemical, and machine learning approaches to understand complex marine systems.

The recent publications highlight a strong trend in end-to-end ecosystem modelling, with emphasis on the Northern Humboldt Current System. Her work spans sensitivity analyses of biogeochemical models, comparisons of fish biomass estimation techniques, and the application of machine learning to forecast species habitats under climate change. These studies reflect interdisciplinary efforts combining oceanography, fisheries science, and computational modelling.

• BMT Oceanica Consulting Marine Science Prize

She has served as Principal Investigator for the BMBF-funded Humboldt Tipping (Phase 2) project and was a doctoral researcher in both Humboldt Tipping and CUSCO projects. She has supervised multiple bachelor's and master's interns and is open to advising students in ecosystem modelling. She is an active member of the ICES Working Group on Integrative, Physical-biological and Ecosystem Modelling. Her work is disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations, workshops, and preprints.

She has contributed to scientific capacity building by teaching courses on ocean upwelling systems, ecosystem modelling with OSMOSE, and scientific communication. Her research is conducted within collaborative international teams, as evidenced by her co-authorship in multi-institutional studies.