In cooperation

Päivi Hakanen

Tmi Zwerver works closely with Päivi Hakanen, an excellent algae identifier. Päivi works as a so called light entrepreneur from her home town of Kirkkonummi and describes herself as follows:

“I am a 2009 graduate of the University of Helsinki with a Master’s degree in Marine Biology. I fell in love with phytoplankton through my summer work and my thesis on algae monitoring. My final thesis was about allelopathic interactions between dinoflagellates and diatoms in the spring bloom in the Baltic Sea. I started doing phytoplankton analyses with a microscope in 2008, when I determined samples from the Baltic Sea for different research projects. After that, from 2010 to 2014, I studied Baltic phytoplankton during my postgraduate studies at the University of Helsinki. My research topic was the ecology and taxonomy of the toxic Alexandrium ostenfeldii armoured urchin algae. During my studies, I was able to spend a month at the University of Copenhagen, where I studied the taxonomy of the dinoflagellate Levanderina fissa, which I had isolated from the Baltic Sea, and learned electron microscopy methods used in taxonomy. I also attended international courses on phytoplankton identification and ecology.

In 2013, I started learning about freshwater phytoplankton species with Satu’s guidance. In 2012 and 2014 we had wonderful girls, with whom I was at home from 2014 to 2017. During my nursing leave I continued to learn freshwater species with Satu and in 2016 I started to determine phytoplankton samples part-time for Tmi Zwerver. Since autumn 2017, I have been working as a phytoplankton sampler and reporting the results for Tmi Zwerver.

Päivi Hakanen at her office.