New staff in INTERACT

PhD Student Manca Vertot

Manca has an MSc in microbiology from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She previously worked in pharmaceutical industry, where she was involved in genetic engineering of Streptomyces spp. for further improvement and enhancement of clavulanic acid production.
In INTERACT, her work will focus on identification, characterization and metabolic profiling of rhizosphere filamentous fungi. The main goal is to detect important secondary metabolites directly on wheat roots and in rhizosphere soil. In addition, studies of synthetic communities of fungi and bacteria will be carried out to understand the chemistry behind microbial interactions.
Manca started her PhD on 1 December 2021 under supervision of Prof. Jens Frisvad.

Place of employment: Technical University of Denmark, DTU Bioengineering, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine

PhD Student Courtney Horn Herms

I am a new PhD fellow in the INTERACT project. I also did my master’s thesis in INTERACT at the University of Copenhagen, where I looked at the impact of root diameter on Pseudomonas taxonomic and functional diversity in wheat. As a PhD student, I will continue to unravel the relationship between root morphological traits and bacterial colonization of wheat roots, with a special focus on how the physical and chemical traits of roots influence microbial functional diversity.
Courtney started her PhD in November 2021 under supervision of Assoc. Prof. Mette Nicolaisen.

Place of employment: University of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Microbial Ecology and Biotechnology

Erasmus Student Marit Krul

I'm an Erasmus student in INTERACT from the Netherlands. I'm in my final year of a Bachelor's degree in Green Biotechnology from Inholland university of applied sciences in Amsterdam.
In INTERACT I will be working on the regulation of genes involved in secondary metabolite production using bioreporters. And I will be looking at colonization potential of several bacteria in the rhizosphere of wheat.
Marit started her Erasmus project at UCPH back in August 2021 under supervision of Assoc. Prof. Mette Nicolaisen.

Place of employment: University of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Microbial Ecology and Biotechnology

Associate Professor Efstathios (Stathis) Diamantopoulos

I am an environmental soil physicist with expertise in flow and transport processes in the vadose zone. My scientific curiosity is focused on the understanding and the analysis between the discrepancy of theory predictions and actual observations (direct or indirect), targeting the non-linear feedbacks between plants, soil ecology and soil hydrology. Key to my research philosophy is to use/develop mathematical models as representational vehicles or media. I am also interested in what characterizes a scientific theory as good (or bad) or in a more applied context, when a model output can be considered reliable, in terms of data accuracy and data-model integration characteristics/methods.
Stathis will start working on Research Theme 4 in INTERACT.

Place of employment: University of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Environmental Chemistry and Physics

Affilliated Staff:

Postdoc Ajay Madhusudan Sorty

Ajay is especially interested in the signaling factors governing plant-microbe interactions. During the early days of his career as a microbial ecologist, he became more and more curious about how plants communicate with microbes in stressful habitats such as saline lands and deserts, and how microbial associations are helpful to enhance stress tolerance in plants.
Currently Ajay is working with Prof. Peter Stougaard on an EU-MSCA-IF project - Rhizosphere Engineering: influence on signalling behaviour and colonization under drought conditions. In this project he will mainly focus on different dimensions of plant-microbe signaling in wheat under drought conditions, aiming to establish the origin and existence of a range of signaling compounds exchanged by wheat-roots and the associative microbes during the formation of beneficial associations.
Ajay started his postdoc at AU in December 2021.

Place of employment: Aarhus University, Department of Environmental Science – Environmental Microbiology and Circular Resource Streams.