Sofie Thijs is a postdoc at the Centre of Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University. She received a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Universiteit Hasselt in 2008, a Master's in Biomedical Sciences from Transnational University Limburg in 2010, and a Ph.D. from Universiteit Hasselt in 2015. She is a member of the Flemish Supercomputer Center and the European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO). Her current research priorities are (I) understanding the influences of abiotic stresses on organisms in their environment, (II) developing and accessing sustainable clean technologies such as bio- and phytoremediation to mitigate the influence of pollutants on organisms, and (III) monitoring, valuing and optimizing microbes, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions under a changing climate.