Joël Brugger obtained his PhD at the University of Basel, Switzerland in 1996, for his work on the geochemistry and mineralogy of metamorphosed syn-genetic exhalative Mn deposits. In 2002 he joined the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide, and established the Minerals, Microbes & Solutions research group, dedicated to using state-of-the-art experimental techniques to study the transport and deposition of metals and mineral-microbe-fluid interaction in geological environments. In January 2014, Joël took up a new chair in Synchrotron Geosciences at Monash University.