Prof. Baars is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology at NC State University since January 2018. His interests include the microbiology of trace-metals in the environment and consequences of trace-metal availability for small-molecule microbiome interactions, crop productivity, and biogeochemical cycles. After B.Sc. and M.Sc. studies in Chemistry at the University of Leipzig (Germany), Prof. Baars graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography from the University of Kiel (Germany). In his Ph.D. research, he studied the distribution and speciation of trace-metals as micro-nutrients in the ocean and how they can control microbial growth and the cycles of the major elements of life. In the following years as a Postdoc at Princeton University (NJ), he developed chelomics – a new metabolomic approach for discovery and characterization of metal chelating compounds in complex samples. The application of chelomics has since revealed unprecedented structures of secreted bacterial iron shuttles in cultures and environmental samples.
Office
223 Partners III, Campus Box 7244
851 Main Campus Drive
Raleigh, NC 27695
P: 919-515-6994