Dr Hang Wei Hu

Theme leader, Theme 3 - Microbiome interactions

Dr Hu is a soil molecular microbial ecologist with research interests broadly defined within the areas of soil biology and health, plant-microbe interactions, and environmental microbiology. He leads Theme 3 which will develop new knowledge of plant signaling molecules and how these advise development of more efficient nitrogen fertilisers.  Dr Hu has collaborated with Australian and New Zealand fertiliser industries, and the grains and livestock industries to establish data analysis methods to support business decisions.  Dr Hu’s research has been able to take advantage of rapidly improving high-throughput sequencing approaches to answer important ecological questions regarding soil/plant microbiome composition and diversity, soil biogeochemical nitrogen cycling processes and transmission of antibiotic resistance genes in plant-soil systems. Dr Hu has published >120 peer-reviewed papers (>90 papers in the last five years) in multidisciplinary areas, which have been cited 5000 times and an editor of Plant Growth Regulation and Journal of Soils and Sediments.