Santiago F. Elena

CSIC Professor and head of the Evolutionary and Systems Virology group at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology. In addition, he is an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute (NM, USA) and member of the European Virus Bioinformatics Center (University of Jena, Germany). He graduated in Biochemistry and did a PhD thesis on Evolutionary Genetics of RNA viruses at the University of Valencia. His work has focused on the study of the mechanisms by which RNA viruses adapt to their hosts and how this adaptation results in the manipulation of cellular resources. He combines experimental evolution, molecular biology and omics, molecular epidemiology, and mathematical modeling. Among other merits, he is an elected member of the European Organization for Molecular Biology (EMBO), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academia Europaea. He has published more than 320 papers, with ~23,000 citations and an h index of 76.

Safaa G. Kumari

Head of Seed Health Laboratory & Plant Virologist at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Lebanon. Working on (i)  legume and cereal viruses (monitoring, detection, host range, crop losses, screening, transmission, control, production of antisera and preparation of diagnostic kits for the detection of specific cereal and legume viruses), and (ii) identification and management of seed-borne insect pests and diseases in legumes and cereals (phytosanitary safety and prevention of transboundary spread of seed-borne pests). She was selected for the BBC’s list of the 100 most influential women of 2020 in recognition of her outstanding achievements in Plant Virology Research and was chosen as one of 11 women for the MEDNIGHT 2023 Mediterranean Science Team. She was elected President of the Arab Society for Plant Protection (2022-2025). She has been an Associate Editor of the Arab Journal of Plant Protection since 2003. She has published 133 papers in Refereed Journals and presented around 150 abstracts at scientific conferences.

Marc Fuchs

Marc Fuchs received a Master’s degree and a PhD from University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. He joined the Department of Plant Pathology at Cornell University with research and extension responsibilities on viruses of vegetable and fruit crops.

Prof. Fuchs leads a translational program, based on discovery-oriented research and the transfer of discoveries into practical applications. Marc is leading multidisciplinary team efforts on disease ecology, virus-host-vector interactions, and disease management.

He is the President of the International Council for the Study of Virus and Virus-like Diseases of the Grapevine, a fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, and chairing the National Clean Plant Network for grapes.

Kingsley Dixon

Kingsley Dixon  is a botanist and conservation biologist who specialises in Australian plants, their biology, ecology and ultimately their conservation.  He is widely known for his discovery of smoke from bushfires as the key agent responsible for native seed germination and established the research team at Kings Park and Botanic Garden and now at The University of Western Australia.  The presentation will overview why meeting in southwest Western Australia puts you at the heart of one of the most extraordinary floras on earth.

Robin MacDiarmid

Associate Professor Robin MacDiarmid is based at The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited where she hosts students from the University of Auckland. She teaches about viruses of plants, fungi and oomycete pathogens of crops or native plants. When not at work Robin enjoys sailing her wooden boat on the Bay of Islands where she lives.

Maher Al Rwahnih

Dr. Maher Al-Rwahnih is the director of Foundation Plant Services at the University of California, Davis, and a plant pathologist specializing in plant health, diagnostics, and graft-transmissible pathogens. His work focuses on strengthening science-based plant quarantine, phytosanitary regulation, and clean plant certification systems. He has played a leading role in the validation and regulatory adoption of High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) for pathogen detection, supporting the modernization of quarantine and certification programs and the safe international movement of plant material.