SEB Annual Conference Antwerp 2025

Johannes Kromdijk

University of Cambridge

No bio provided

Zoran Nikoloski

Zoran Nikoloski serves as the Chair of Bioinformatics at University of Potsdam and is a Collaborative Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam, Germany. Trained as a computer scientist in network science research at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA, Prof. Dr. Nikoloski moved to plant computational systems biology research after a computer science postdoc at Charles University, Prague, Czechia. Prof. Dr. Nikoloski's research focuses on developing constraint-based metabolic models of photosynthetic organisms and machine learning approaches for integration of omics data into metabolic models. The generated approaches and frameworks are used in generating and improving the design of metabolic engineering strategies for various biotechnological applications.

Dr Philipp Wendering

Philipp Wendering is a postdoctoral researcher in the Environmental Plant Physiology group at the University of Cambridge. He earned his PhD at the University of Potsdam, where he used constraint-based modeling to study plant metabolic and growth responses to temperature changes. His current research focuses on improving parameter estimation in large-scale kinetic models of photosynthesis. More broadly, he is interested in using mechanistic modeling and data integration to investigate how plant metabolism and growth respond to different environmental factors.

Dr Marek Mutwil

No bio provided

Dr Cathy Westhues

No bio provided

Prof. Ros Gleadow

Monash University

No bio provided

Prof. Elizabeth Jakobsen Neilson

University of Copenhagen

Elizabeth H J Neilson is an assistant professor and group leader at the University of Copenhagen. She is inspired by nature and motivated by curiosity-driven science. She aims to apply state-of-the-art platforms and techniques to important ecological, forestry and agricultural systems to improve sustainable food supply and protect the environment for the generations to come.

Elizabeth’s research specifically investigates the chemical interface between plants and their environment, with specific emphasis on pathway discovery in genetically complex organisms, and the identification of new enzyme members and natural products. Her multidisciplinary approach spans molecular biology, biochemistry, ecophysiology, pathway evolution and metabolomics.

Cathie Martin

John Innes

No bio provided

Deyang Xu

University of Copenhagen

No bio provided

Dr. Liana Acevedo-Siaca

Michigan State University

Liana Acevedo-Siaca is a postdoctoral researcher at the Michigan State University-Department of Energy (MSU-DOE) Plant Research Laboratory (PRL). Her current research focuses on understanding how plants respond to fluctuating light conditions within the context of other abiotic stresses, such as heat. Furthermore, her work aims to connect the fields of plant physiology and breeding by characterizing natural variation, understanding the limitations to photosynthesis, and exploring the amenability for improvement of photosynthetic traits through selection to work towards more resilient crops.

Prior to joining MSU, Acevedo-Siaca completed her graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she focused on plant physiology and photosynthesis in rice in collaboration with the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) Project. During graduate school she spent time at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines as a U.S. Borlaug Fellow in Global Food Security. Most recently, Acevedo-Siaca worked at CIMMYT as an Associate Scientist in the Wheat Physiology division of the Global Wheat Program.

Silvere Vialet-Chabrand

No bio provided

Kin Pan Chung

Kin Pan Chung is an assistant professor at the Wageningen University & Research (WUR), the Netherlands. Pan obtained his PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a research focus on autophagy and protein trafficking in plants. He continued his academic career as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany, where he developed multiple research lines including cytoplasmic inheritance and algal plastid biotechnology. In 2024, Pan joined the Laboratory of Plant Physiology at WUR, where he established the Cytoplasmic Genetics Group. His current research focuses on investigating the mechanisms of plastid and mitochondrial inheritance.

Pascal Touzet

Université de Lille

Pascal Touzet is a Professor in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Lille, France. He has been working on plant breeding system evolution in the Beta and Silene genera, with a focus on gynodioecy which led him to study mitochondrial genome evolution. More recently, he discovered the involvement of plastid-nuclear genetic incompatibilities in rapid speciation in Silene nutans.

Tom Theeuwen

Jan Ingenhousz Institute

Tom Theeuwen did his PhD at the Laboratory of Genetics at Wageningen University & Research. During his PhD he established new methods to unravel how genetic variation in cyto-nuclear interactions impacts different phenotypes, such as cytoplasmic male sterility and photosynthetic efficiency. Currently he is a Research Fellow at the Jan IngenHousz Institute where he is heading a team to study how genetic variation can be used to reveal photosynthetic limitations towards growth.

Karen Barnard-Kubow

Department of Biology, James Madison University

I am an evolutionary biologist interested in how the diversity of life we see around us is generated and maintained. I am particularly interested in how cytonuclear coevolution in plants and subsequent disruption of this coevolution when crossing genetically divergent lineages can lead to reproductive isolation and ultimately drive speciation. I address this question by investigating a strong cytonuclear incompatibility in the herbaceous species Campanula americana, a member of the Campanulaceae, which exhibits rapidly evolving chloroplast genomes. I utilize a range of techniques in my work, including crossing experiments, whole genome sequencing, and RNAseq

Shin-ichi Arimura

Shin-ichi Arimura earned his PhD at the University of Tokyo in 2002 and began his research on the molecular and cellular biology of mitochondrial fission and live-cell imaging of mitochondrial fusion in plants. He pursued his academic career at the same university, becoming a full professor in 2024. Recently, his research has focused on developing gene-editing methods to better understand plastid and mitochondrial genomes and harness the potential of these untapped genetic systems for future breeding.

Deserah Strand

Deserah Strand graduated with a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from Michigan State Universtiy. She is currently a Research Fellow in Photosynthetic Energy Control at the Jan IngenHousz Institute in Wageningen, NL. Her research is focused on chloroplast bioenergetics.

Bobby Caine

Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Sheffield

Bobby works within the Plants, Photosynthesis, and Soil cluster at the University of Sheffield. His research encompasses how crop stomata contribute to abiotic stress resilience, with a particular focus on how stomata respond to future climatic extremes (e.g. higher atmospheric CO₂ concentration and increasing temperatures). Drawing from a background in stomatal evolution, Bobby’s interests in stomata are broad, and more recently this has involved utilising remote sensing technologies to model stomatal responses to drought and/or nutrient stress. Bobby serves on the board of Plants, People, Planet as Editorial Advisor and is also a Review Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science.

Caspar Chater

Senior Research Leader, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Caspar Chater is a Senior Research Leader in Crops and Global Change at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, UK. His translational research builds on stomatal development and physiology to improve crop water deficit resilience and harnesses Crop Wild Relatives and Indigenous crops to diversify and enhance crops in the face of the climate emergency. In his applied work, he investigates how differences in plant water uptake and gas exchange processes across local and global scales can be exploited to develop traceability tools for commodities such as soybean and cocoa, to support deforestation regulations and food supply chain transparency. His translational approaches to improving bean drought responses won him the Newton Prize Mexico 2018 and the Rank Prize Nutrition Award 2020.

Professor Tracy Lawson

Professor, University of Illinois

Professor Tracy Lawson is a professor in the Plant Productivity group and Director of Plant Phenotyping at Essex, with over 25 years’ experience in photosynthesis research. Her research focuses on the stomatal control of atmospheric gas entry into the leaf, associated water loss and the mechanisms that regulate this process. Recent research has paid particular attention to stomatal kinetics and the impact of dynamic environments on both photosynthesis and stomatal behaviour. Tracy’s work also concentrates on phenotyping including chlorophyll fluorescence techniques (for quantifying light use and photosynthetic efficiency) and thermal imaging (for measuring stomatal responses and kinetics). Lawson’s lab developed the first imaging system for screening plant water-use-efficiency (McAusland et al., 2013).

 

 

 

Dr. John Ferguson

Lecturer, University of Essex

Lecturer in Plant-Environment interactions in the School of Life Sciences at The University of Essex. John’s interests span the juncture of plant ecophysiology and genetics, where he is interested in developing and employing phenomics approaches to characterise variation in key traits that define the response of plants to climate changes. Increasingly, his research is concerned with illuminating the genetic basis of photo-physiological variation in key crops, such as maize and rice.

Dr Lorna McAusland

Nottingham University, United Kingdom

Lorna McAusland is a plant physiologist, specialising in the dynamic responses of photosynthesis and water regulation to heat stress. Since completing her PhD at the University of Essex under Professors Tracy Lawson and Neil Baker, Lorna has been part of eight field campaigns across Europe, the USA and Mexico and has contributed to three global consortia (RIPE, IWYP, HeDWIC), focusing on the improvement of wheat photosynthesis under growing climactic uncertainty. Recently, this work has also included understanding the contribution of nocturnal plant processes to survival under daytime environmental extremes. Currently hosted by Professor Erik Murchie at the University of Nottingham, Lorna holds a BBSRC-Discovery Fellowship focussing on development of high-throughput phenotyping systems to assess the resilience of non-foliar photosynthesis under heat, particularly the wheat ear.

Bertrand Muller

No bio provided

Marta Del Bianco

Italian Space Agency

No bio provided

Dr Megan Leigh Matthews

Assistant Professor , Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois, United States of America

Megan Matthews is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois. Her work involves developing multiscale computational models to explore the impacts of a changing environment on plants and to identify engineering strategies for improving plant development and growth. She has used mechanistic and data-driven approaches to develop models describing plant processes at regulatory, metabolic, and physiological scales. Megan earned her bachelor's, master's, and doctorate in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University.

Johnathan Napier

Originally from County Down, Northern Ireland, Johnathan obtained his BSc in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Nottingham, followed by a PhD in plant biochemistry from King’s College, London. He carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, then taking up a position at Long Ashton Research Station in Bristol. His research group relocated to Rothamsted Research in 2003 where he is currently Science Director. Johnathan is also an Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Professor at the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and is the inventor on multiple granted patents relating to the biotechnology of plant oils. He was awarded his DSc from the University of Nottingham in 2006 for outstanding contributions to the field of plant lipid research. He is passionate about the importance of public engagement in gaining social license for new technologies and is a regular contributor to discussions about GM food and agriculture. Johnathan is currently Editor-in-Chief of Plant Biotechnology Journal.

George Littlejohn

No bio provided