I manage a multi-disciplinary team of researchers aiming to help find solutions for preventing, diagnosing and controlling plant pests and diseases, focusing on the development of disease/pest risk prediction models and on the development of bioinformatics approaches for metabarcoding/metagenomics (e.g. to analyse the microbiome), bacterial/fungal genomics and multi-omics data.

I am studying bacterial evolution at the interface with a mammalian host. Over the past 3 years, my work has focused on studying bacterial evolution within the gut microbiota (using mouse models) and how this is affected by exogenous factors such as diet. Between 2012 and 2015, my work focused mostly on studying bacterial evolution in response to immune attack by macrophages and its consequences for the evolution of antibiotic resistance (using cell culture systems). ► Published 6 research papers in international journals with peer-review (3 more are in preparation)► Analyzes of microbiome data (16S rRNA)► Analyzes of bacterial whole-genome sequencing► Became proficient in multiple bacteriology techniques► Genetic engineering of bacteria► acquired expertise in evolutionary genetics► Acquired excellent skills in data visualization in R (using ggplot2 and extensions)► Became proficient with several data science packages in R (e.g. dplyr, tidyr)► Further developed teaching and mentoring skills► Developed event organization skills (co-organized an international meeting with >100 attendees and several national meetings in evolutionary biology)

Studied ecological interactions between different species of rodent malaria parasites and how these can affect host health, parasite fitness and parasite reproduction.► Published 5 research papers in international journals with peer-review (4 as first author)► implemented a RT-qPCR protocol to quantify two rodent malaria species in mixed infections► Fluorescence and bright field microscopy ► acquired expertise in phylogenetics► Became proficient in using mouse models► Developed skills in statistical analysis using R (including linear mixed models and generalized linear models)► Became proficient in experimental design and project management► Developed excellent communication skills (both written and oral) to effectively communicate science to a diverse set of audiences► Developed teaching and mentoring skills► Improved science communication skills by writing press releases (in a collaborative project between scientists and the University's press office)