Luitgard Schwendenmann

Luitgard Schwendenmann is a German–New Zealand ecosystem scientist, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in how nutrients, carbon and water cycle through the soil, plants and atmosphere.

Academic career
Schwendenmann completed a Bachelor of Engineering at Bingen Technical University of Applied Sciences, followed by a Master of Science in Resource Engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a PhD in landscape ecology at the Georg August University. Schwendenmann undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Wyoming, and then joined the faculty of the School of Environment at the University of Auckland in 2010, where she was promoted to full professor in 2024.

Schwendemann's research focuses on how nutrients, carbon and water cycle through the soil, plants and atmosphere. Schwendenmann learned about kauri dieback, a fungus-like disease of the native kauri tree, while working on urban ecosystems in Auckland, and became interested in the impact of pathogens on ecosystem functioning. She has also worked on myrtle rust, which affects plants in the Myrtaceae family, which in New Zealand includes pōhutukawa, northern rātā, and southern rātā.

In 2021, Schwendenmann received a Mercator Fellowship to spend three years studying the relationship between canopy structure and plant water uptake patterns, at the University of Jena in Germany.

Schwendenmann is co-lead with Simon Wegner and Nick Waipara of the Ngā Rākau Taketake – Risk Assessment and Ecological Impact theme of the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge.