Since January 1, 2018, Prof. Dr. Meinhard Simon is Vice President for Research and Transfer at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.

He studied biology focusing on aquatic ecology, microbiology and biochemistry at the universities of Konstanz and Freiburg (Germany) and completed his doctoral thesis work on a topic in aquatic microbiology at the University of Freiburg. Thereafter, he went to Scripps Institution of Oceanography at San Diego, California, for a two years postdoctoral stay as a fellow of the German Research Fund ('Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft'). Several years followed as a research associate at the University of Konstanz, where he obtained his postdoctoral degree ('Habilitation') and served as temporary Director of the Limnological Institute for two years. After having declined in 1996 an offer for a Professorship at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, he accepted a call for the Professorship Biology of Geological Processes at the University of Oldenburg in 1997.  

From 2001 to 2003 and in 2007, Simon served as Director of the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, and from 2013 to 2015 as Dean of the School of Mathematics and Science. Since 2010, he is Chair of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center TRR 51 “Ecology, Physiology and Molecular Biology of the Roseobacter group: Towards a systemsbiological understanding of a globally important group of marine bacteria”. Key aspects of his research are bacteria in the water column of the oceans and their significance for global biogeochemical processes. His work is documented in more than 150 publications in international journals. In the context of his research activities, he carried out expeditions to the North Sea, Red Sea, Atlantic, Pacific and the Southern Ocean and in total spent more than a full year aboard research vessels.