Lilian Busse

Since April 2015, Dr. Lilian Busse is leading the Division of Environmental Health and the Protection of Ecosystems at the German Environment Agency (UBA). Since September 2021 she has been the Vice President of UBA. The tasks of the division include the protection of freshwater, coastal, marine and polar ecosystems as well as the protection of soil, groundwater and drinking water. In addition, the division is working on the environmental issues due to current agricultural practices and develops management measures for a sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, the division is working on the improvement of air quality by monitoring and assessing air quality and establish concepts for the reduction of air pollutants.

Currently, Dr. Busse is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Helmholtz Center of Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany. 

From 2006-2015, Dr. Busse was a lead scientist at the California Environmental Protection Agency, USA, working on the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program of California’s freshwater and marine ecosystems. She worked as a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego from 2002-2006 focusing on harmful algal blooms. From 2000-2002, Dr. Busse received a postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research on eutrophication in freshwater and coastal ecosystems at the University of California in Santa Barbara, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Freshwater Ecology at the Technical University Berlin, Germany, and holds a M.S. in Biology from the Technical University Munich, Germany. 

Throughput her career, Dr. Busse is focusing her work on the protection of freshwater and marine ecosystems. For over a decade, she is working on the interface between science and policy in this field.