Postdoc Council Members

PostDoc, Department of Biochemistry – Wageningen University
About my research
My name is Tatyana (Tanya) and I am currently PostDoctoral researcher in the group of Prof Dolf Weijers at Wageningen University. My PhD project was focused on alternative ways of inducing embryogenesis in plants and in particular on suspensor-derived embryogenesis. In addition, I am interested in the plant signaling molecule auxin. The auxin response pathway implicates only three main gene families, among which is the inhibiting Aux/IAA proteins. The Aux/IAA family can be subdivided into two groups, canonical and non-canonical, based on presence or conservation of domains. Strikingly, recent phylogenomic analysis of the nuclear auxin response pathway reveals a deep conservation of non-canonical Aux/IAA (ncIAA), which is present in a single copy in all evolutionary nodes (Mutte, Kato et al., 2018) and which I am investigating.

PostDoc, Plant Ecophysiology – Utrecht University
About my research
My name is Chrysa Pantazopoulou and I am postdoctoral researcher in plant Ecophysiology group at Utrecht University. My research focuses on different aspects of shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). Previous studies in our lab have shown that the earliest neighbor responses in dense stands of Arabidopsis are induced through touching of leaves and lead to hyponastic (upward) leaf movement. The resulting vertical Arabidopsis’ canopy structure yields light signals that result in typical shade avoidance responses. I investigate the mechanisms that stimulate hyponastic growth and subsequent elongation growth in dense stands.

PostDoc, Plant Ecophysiology – Utrecht University
About my research
My major research interest is on how plants survive in dry environments. During my MSc and PhD I investigated genomic, physiological, and molecular responses to desiccation tolerance in orthodox seeds and resurrection plants, and found that during evolution plants developed a powerful toolkit to protect their cells against the damages caused by water loss. Currently I work on investigating one element of this toolkit which is found in the roots of many plant species, the suberized exodermis.

I’m Yang from China. I love meeting people from various research backgrounds and different cultures. I’m doing my postdoc at Plant-Microbe Interaction group in Utrecht University. This is a 2 years project cooperating with HZPC (one of the biggest potato breeding company in Europe) and TU delft. The goal of my project is to find microbes that act as predictors of potato vitalities.