New Tenure-Track Professors at CeMESS
CeMESS is delighted to welcome Megan Sorensen and Clarissa Campbell, who joined the University of Vienna as Tenure-Track Professors in May 2026. We are very excited to have them as part of our growing research community!
Megan Sørensen
In her ERC starting grant 'TRANSITIONS' Megan Sørensen will explore how tightly integrated interactions between microorganisms emerge and evolve over time. These partnerships have been critical in the evolution of life and play important roles in our ecosystems. Megan will study protist (single-cell eukaryote) partnerships that are at critical tipping points in their evolutionary integration. For instance, one partnership can be used to study the initial integration between free-living organisms to form an interdependent association, while the second can provide unique insights into how, on occasion, these partners can integrate to such an extent that one partner loses its autonomy and becomes merely a compartment (organelle) within the other.
Megan and her team aim to uncover the molecular foundations of these relationships using a range of techniques: from cutting-edge technologies that visualise molecules within a single-cell to field-sampling that will monitor these organisms in nature. This will enable them to study how these partnerships are integrated at every level of their cellular biology, and how this enables coordination, and potential manipulation, between the partners. Her work will shed light on fundamental evolutionary processes that continue to shape ecosystems and life on Earth.
Megan received her PhD from the University of Sheffield, UK, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm and Uppsala University, Sweden. She then held an EMBO and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellowship at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Subsequently, she received a College for Life Sciences fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study). In May 2026, Megan moved to the University of Vienna and started her group at CeMESS. Throughout her career, Megan’s research has centred around understanding the fundamental processes by which photosynthetic endosymbiotic partnerships evolve. Her research record has had broad implications for the areas of endosymbiosis and plastid evolution, and has been at the forefront of leveraging protist model systems within these areas.
Key Research Topics:
- Evolution of endosymbioses
- Plastid evolution
- Photosynthetic microbial eukaryotes
Clarissa Campbell
This ERC project investigates how dynamic microbial metabolism shapes tissue physiology and mucosal immunity in the gut. It focuses on how diet-driven shifts in microbial activity generate bioactive metabolites – such as fiber-derived compounds and bile-acid derivatives – that promote regulatory T cell differentiation and maintain immune tolerance. By combining candidate-based screens of curated microbial molecules with untargeted metabolomic profiling across fed and fasted states, the project seeks to map the causal links between nutrient intake, microbial metabolism, and host immune homeostasis. In vitro immunoassays and intestine organoids are employed to identify host targets of microbial signals and to dissect the molecular pathways underpinning immunoregulation. The research aims to elucidate mechanisms by which diet–microbiome interactions tune mucosal immunology, yielding insights relevant to inflammatory and metabolic diseases. Expected outcomes include identifying metabolite-immune node relationships, defining the conditions under which tolerance is reinforced or disrupted, and generating translational strategies to modulate immune responses through dietary or microbiome-guided intervention.
Clarissa Campbell is an immunobiology researcher whose work centers on how microbial metabolites shape gut immunity in health and disease. She led a project at CeMM (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and holds a tenure-track position at the University of Vienna, following a career that spans the Weill Cornell graduate program, a postdoc with Alexander Rudensky at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and group leader at CeMM. Her interdisciplinary approach combines metabolomics, microbial genetics, and organoid-based immunology to define how nutrition and the microbiome govern immune tolerance. Her research aims to uncover actionable targets that modulate immune homeostasis, informing therapies for inflammatory and metabolic disorders.
Key Research Topics:
- Impact of microbial metabolites on immune cells in health and disease
- Effects of nutrients on gut bacteria and mucosal immunity
- Metabolic adaptation to infections