Molecular Plant Pathologist

Current research focuses:
The evolutionary ecology of inter-kingdom host shifts between plants and insects of plant pathogenic fungi.

Key Research Topics:
Identification and characterization of plant pathogenic fungi and oomycetes via molecular (e.g., multi-loci and genome sequencing) and morphological diagnostic tools (e.g., microscopy and colony appearance). Understanding population genetics, biology and phenotyping of microbial pathogens causing diseases and their interactions with agricultural crops (e.g. strawberry, citrus, quinoa plants and others) are important topics of my research.

Previous research topics and on-going collaborations are on interactions systems of beneficial fungal or bacterial strains - to help plants (e.g. barley, maize, tomato) against abiotic (e.g. drought and salinity) and biotic stresses (plant diseases) using molecular, biochemical, physiological and multispectral imaging techniques.