Healthy Crops is an international research-for-development project aimed at creating bacterial-blight resistant rice for smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa. It is a multilateral consortium of Heinrich Heine Universität in Germany, the Universities of Florida and Missouri in the US, IRD in France, CIAT in Colombia and IRRI in the Philippines. We also partner with IIRR in India, INERA in Burkina Faso and NaCRRI in Uganda.• As project coordinator, I managed the project life-cycle, internal and external communication, supported the strategy development and reporting• Most important achievement: facilitated the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR)

And yet another switch: from fundamental research to applied research and science communication. As a Marie Curie Fellow I translate my longstanding expertise in plant pathology into a practical solution for a serious problem: Fusarium wilt disease of bananas.Fusarium wilt is caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense. A new race of this fungus is rapidly spreading and jeopardises banana production worldwide. Within the 2Blades group at TSL, we perform translational research leveraging the advanced understanding of molecular host-pathogen interactions at TSL to deliver new solutions against relevant plant diseases. These novel discoveries are subsequently developed into products for subsistence and commercial farmers via the 2Blades Foundation and commercial partners. I will use cutting-edge technology to engineer resistance to Fusarium wilt disease in banana - with a special focus on banana and plantain production in Africa.

As a postdoc, I switched from the lab bench to the computer to pioneer genome analysis in our research group. The overall goal was to identify virulence genes that distinguish pathogenic from non-pathogenic soil fungi. To study this, I have taught myself how to program in Python and R, experimented with cutting-edge DNA sequencing technologies like Illumina, PacBio and Oxford Nanopore and implemented pipelines for genome and transcriptome analysis.Programing is like project management. You break down complex problems into small, feasible steps and then pull it all together. Next to the bioinformatic genome analysis, I managed the molecular biology projects of undergraduate and graduate students got my hands dirty with pathogenicity assays in the greenhouse.So far, I have published two (highly accessed) first author papers from this research (about the identification of an avirulence gene of a melon pathogen and one about a genomic signature of virulence genes) and participated in two others. Two more first-author papers will be published soon.. Technical skills:- Extensive experience in bioinformatics and analysis of next generation sequencing data (comparative genomics, transcriptomics/RNA-Seq, genome sequencing, marker development).- Extensive experience in molecular biology, genetics and plant pathology (fungal transformation, pathogenicity tests, cloning, DNA isolation).Social skills:- Established and maintained collaborations with academic and industrial partners.- Strong communication and analytical skills.- Worked in an international and multicultural team.Leadership skills:- Managed the research projects of four Bachelor, two Master and one PhD student and provided supervision and mentorship.

I was invited to join as an expert for Fusarium wilt to field trip in Indonesia. The overall goal of this field trip was to explore the biodiversity of bananas and its devastating pathogen Panama Disease (Fusarium wilt). As part of a multi-disciplinary Dutch-Indonesian team, I helped to establish a comprehensive collection of banana cultivars and fungal isolates from both Sumatra and Java Island.During this field trip, I documented our journey in a blog: https://bananaroots.wordpress.com/.And I took pictures of the tropical setting, the banana plants and the people that we met. A collection of my pictures was exhibited at the Wageningen Banana Day - a symposium for various stakeholders in the banana industry - in November 2014.

As a PhD student, I studied the virulence genes of the barley powdery mildew fungus using cutting-edge molecular and cell biology techniques. I was surrounded by the brightest scientists from around the world and enjoyed working in such an international environment where you are exposed to new ideas, habits and cultures every day. During this time, I presented the PhD students in the Board of Directors and co-organised an international conference for PhD students and a career day for PhD and postdoctoral researchers.