Advisory Board and Editors Agricultural Science
Johannie M. Spaan
Dr. Johannie Spaan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest (Western University of Health Sciences). Her research interests focus on stress physiology, disease ecology, eco-immunology and parasitology.
More specifically, Dr. Spaan's research within the Steinauer lab is focused on a neglected tropical disease, Schistosomiasis, a helminth infection that affects over 200 million people. Research carried out within the lab focuses on uncovering potential mechanisms that can be manipulated to break the life cycle of this pathogen in order to reduce or eliminate schistosome transmission to humans.
In addition to this, Dr. Spaan is also involved in a project investigating the effect of schistosome infections in a mouse model system and the links among parasite infection, behavioral and cognitive changes, microbiome alteration, and systemic inflammation.
Valeria Spagnuolo
Valeria Spagnuolo is Associate Professor in Botany at the Department of Biology at the Federico II University of Naples. She obtained a Ph.D. in molecular systematics (plants) and the scientific qualification to Full Professor 05/A1 (Botany) during the ASN 2018.
Dr. Spagnuolo was involved in several research projects, with a focus on biomonitoring and phytoremediation, within her task/unit and in international teams (the most recent ones: EU Project FP7- ENV.2011.3.1.9-1 Mossclone (2012-15); LIFE11 ENV/IT/275 Ecoremed (2012-2017); PON 03PE_00107. Biopolis (2013-2017).
Dr. Spagnuolo's expertise includes genetic variation in natural populations of mosses along environmental gradients; biomonitoring of air quality by cryptogams and vascular plants; and phytoremediation of metal-polluted soil. In recent years, her long research experience has been centred on plant response to abiotic stresses and biomonitoring of indoor air pollution.
She is involved in editorial activities, as a reviewer for international journals (e.g. Environmental Pollution, Frontiers in Plant Science), as a guest editor in Atmosphere and Plant Journals, and as an editor of the latest Italian edition of Raven (Zanichelli).
Dr. Spagnuolo has published over 60 publications (Scopus ID 6602352988), with an h-index 20 and over 1200 citations. She also detects a patent as the inventor of a tool for biomonitoring of air quality (EP 3 076 171 A1).
German C. Spangenberg
Professor of Plant Genetics and Genomics with La Trobe University. Director AgriBio, the Centre for AgriBioscience, Executive Director, BioSciences Research Division of the Victorian Department of Primary Industries, Chief Scientist of the Dairy Futures Cooperative Research Centre, Chairman of the Victorian AgriBiosciences Centre; Recipient of the Australian Thinker of Year Award; President of the International Association for Plant Biotechnology; Former Chief Editor Plant Science.
Mohsin Tariq
Dr. Mohsin Tariq is an Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics & Biotechnology within the Department of Life Sciences at the Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan. He completed his PhD at University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
His research interests and area of expertise include Agricultural Science, Plant Microbe Interaction, Soil Microbiology and Agronomy.
Martha Vives
Full professor, Biological Sciences Department, Los Andes University. Vice dean for Research Affairs, School of Sciences. Past coordinator for the Microbiology program.
Xiukang Wang
I'm interested in how plants form their interactions with living things in the environment. Agricultural soil and water engineering, soil ecology, plant-microbial interactions, rhizosphere ecology, plant nutrition and crop nutrient quality, nutrient interactions, carbon and nitrogen cycles, soil greenhouse gas emissions, use of organic waste as agricultural fertilizers, sustainable soil management.
Maarten J. Waterloo
PhD in water and nutrient cycling of pine plantation forests in Fiji. Specialised in the science of climate and land use change in relation to their impacts on surface and ground water hydrology and biogeochemical cycles. Expert in tropical natural and plantation forest ecohydrology, micro-meteorology, catchment hydrology, hydrochemistry and agricultural hydrology. Involved in a teaching a wide range of environmental water-related courses at BSc, MSc and PhD levels.
Leslie A. Weston
Research Professor of plant biology & natural products chemistry at Charles Sturt University. Director of metabolomics & plant & livestock toxicology research group. Winner of 2008 Biofirst Lifesciences Fellowship Award, Office of Medical & Science Research, NSW Australia. Recipient of 2005 Molisch Award, International Allelopathy Society for Outstanding Research Contributions. Past President of the Int. Allelopathy Society. Charter member of RACI, Royal Australian Chemistry Inst. Member of GRDC National Weeds Advisory Research Panel.
Robert Winkler
Robert Winkler is Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Biochemical and Instrumental Analysis at the CINVESTAV Unidad Irapuato and faculty member for the postgraduate programs Plant Biotechnology and Integrative Biology. His research topics include novel mass spectrometry techniques such as low-temperature plasma ionization and covalent protein staining, new approaches in the high-throughput metabolomic profiling of plants, computational mass spectrometry and proteomics.
Xiangyang Xu
Research Geneticist (Plant) at the USDA-ARS Wheat, Peanut, and Other Field Crop Research Unit.
My current interest is in wheat genetics, genomics, and breeding. I focus on wheat pest and disease resistance, including Russian wheat aphid, greenbug, bird cherry oat aphid, leaf rusts, and powdery mildew resistance etc.
Yunfeng Xu
Dr. Yunfeng Xu is currently working in Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Dr. Xu focuses on fine mapping and the cloning of important wheat genes for yield traits, as well as developing robust molecular markers for wheat improvement.
Guangdong Yang
Dr. Yang’s research focuses on a group of gasotransmitters, especially H2S, in the regulation of cellular functions and human diseases. Dr. Yang has received numerous awards and recognitions, including New Investigator award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Maureen Andrew Award from Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. In his career, Dr. Yang has published ~100 peer-reviewed research articles, some of them published in high-impact journals, including as Science, Circulation, PNAS, and EMBO report etc. Their total citations are 7,481 (September 24, 2018).