Antje Boetius is a deep-sea researcher and an expert of marine biogeochemistry, biological oceanography, and microbial ecology of the oceans. She works on polar seas, on chemosynthetic ecosystems and other extreme habitats of the ocean. Antje Boetius has lead and participated in over 45 expeditions, and she has coordinated large national and international research programs. Current studies include the discovery of deep-sea habitats under the Arctic ice cover, and the long-term observation of the effects of climate change on polar ecosystems. Antje Boetius has been awarded with many national and international prizes, including the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Prize of the DFG and the Advanced Grant of the ERC. She is member of the German National Academy Leopoldina, and an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and of the American Academy of Microbiology. She engages in public outreach and transfer of knowledge on extreme environments and the deep sea, and leads the coordinating body of “Wissenschaft im Dialog” (Science dialogue with society). With her father, the writer Henning Boetius, she has written the book “Das Dunkle Paradies – die Entdeckung der Tiefsee”.