Members

Stéphane comes from Nancy, France. He got his PhD at the University of Lorraine in France in 2010 and did a Postdoc at the MPIPZ in Cologne. Most of his earlier work was on fungal transcriptional reprogramming during colonization of plant tissues. Since January 2017, he is a Group Leader at the MPIPZ. He is interested into how both host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions impact microbial community structure and plant health.

Yu comes from Japan. He got his PhD at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan in 2018 and did a Postdoc at the RIKEN. He joined the MPIPZ in 2021 and is studying how Fusarium oxysporum interacts with host plants and microbes.

Stephanie comes from Colombia and is a biologist. She obtained her Master's degree in Aquaculture, Environment and Society at the University of Highlands and Islands /University of Crete in 2019. She has professional experience as a research assistant in microbiology and biotechnology laboratories. She started working at MPIPZ in January 2023 as BTA in Haquard's group. She is responsible for isolating, cultivating and characterizing microbes and microbial communities.

Guillaume comes from France and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Angers in 2021. During his Ph.D., he was interested in deciphering the ecological processes involved in the assembly of the seed microbiota with the aim of limiting the invasion of seed-borne pathogens. He joined the MPIPZ in January 2022, to study cross-kingdom metabolic interactions in the Arabidopsis root microbiome.

Arpan is a post-doc investigating the horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in root microbiota. He is working on the identification of the genes acquired by root colonizing fungi from bacterial ancestors. Further, he plans to determine the function of the HGT genes in root microbiota establishment and root endophytism.

Brigitte is working as a technical assistant and comes from Germany. She is working since 35 years at the MPIPZ. Since 1 year she is working in Group Haquard. She is responsible for the laboratory organization and the culture collection.

Ram Sevak comes from India, she obtained her Master degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Bonn in 2020. In her master project, she worked on investigating the allelic variants on gene regulation in F1 maize hybrids using transient luciferase expression assay in the Frommer group at the MPIPZ. In October 2020, she started her PhD in Group Hacquard to work on the Plectosphaerella cucumerina project with the aims of understanding fungal host colonization strategies, adaptation, and dominance in the root microbiome.

Priscilla comes from Nigeria. She obtained her master’s degree in Resource Use and Plant Protection at China Agricultural University, Beijing. She started her PhD in July 2022, and is investigating the genetic mechanisms underlying bacterial-mediated alleviation of fungal dysbiosis in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Qi comes from China, he got his PhD at Inner Mongolia Agricultural University in China in 2014 and did a Postdoc at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Most of his earlier work was on nitrate-mediated regulation of rhizobium and legume symbiosis. He started working at MPIPZ in 2021 as a joint postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Paul Schulze-Lefert, Stephane Hacquard and Ruben Garrido-Oter and is studying the working mechanism of rhizosphere phosphate solubilizing microorganisms during plant growth.