Marianne is a senior regulatory ecotoxicologist with extensive expertise in chemical environmental hazard and risk assessment across soils, freshwater, and marine systems. Her work focuses on emerging pollutants – including ionic liquids, metal and metal‑oxide nanoparticles, endocrine‑disrupting chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biocides, and metals – examined both individually and in mixtures.
Marianne brings more than 15 years of hands‑on experience using a wide range of ecotoxicological test systems, from in vitro assays to complex microbial and organism‑level studies, always with a strong emphasis on understanding chemical fate and behaviour in the environment.
In Blue Frog Scientific, Marianne is part of the animal free regulatory solutions and nanomaterials team focusing on nanomaterial related aspects of the work, in silico methods and most recently a strong involvement in assessments to determine the potential of chemicals for endocrine disruption. She works across different regulations with an ecotoxicological focus.
Throughout her career, Marianne has worked at the interface of biology, environmental sciences, chemistry, materials science, and engineering. She has contributed to academic, research, and regulatory sectors, including her most recent work at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), where she served as Nanomaterials project manager. In this role, Marianne coordinated a team of specialists, guided strategic development for nanomaterials under REACH, and collaborated closely with national authorities.
European research programmes have been central to Marianne’s scientific journey. As a participant and leader in multiple EU‑funded FP6, FP7, and Horizon 2020 projects, she has worked with diverse stakeholder groups such as academia, regulators (e.g. UBA (Germany), DEFRA (UK) or ECHA (EU)), consultancies, standardisation bodies (ISO/BSI), policy makers (e.g. OECD) or different industries (e.g. chemical synthesis, paint or textile producers. These collaborations have equipped her with the ability to communicate effectively across scientific and technical domains. Across her roles, she has managed international projects, written successful grant proposals, allocated resources, ensured scientific quality, represented projects to different stakeholder groups and published her research in peer-reviewed journals (30+ publications & book chapters).
Marianne is an experienced leader and project manager directing research teams of varying sizes over the years, including serving as head of the Ecotoxicological Test Battery and coordinating the NanoToxCom graduate school at the University of Bremen, serving as the interim group leader of the Ecotoxicology and Chemical Risk group at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology or project manager Nanomaterials at the European Chemicals Agency.
Driven by a commitment to improving chemical safety in Europe, Marianne continues to advance approaches for evaluating environmental hazards and risks of established and emerging chemicals in an increasingly complex world.
