The heart of our laboratory

Meet Our Team

Principal investigators

Michelle Cleary

Senior Lecturer in Forest Pathology
Associate Professor (Docent)
Vice Director of the Centre of Excellence Trees For Me

Expertise and Research Area:

  • Biology, ecology, epidemiology and control of forest diseases;
  •  Mycobiome;
  • Invasive species;
  • Resistance biology of trees 
  • Advanced tools for detection and monitoring forest pathogens
  • Ash Dieback, root rot, foliar and stem diseases
Jonas Rönnberg

Director of SLU Forest Damage Centre (fungi, bacteria and viruses)Forest Damage Centre Associate Professor (Docent)
Head, Secretariat of SNS (Nordic Forest Research)

Expertise and Research Area:

  • Root rot; forest damage
  • Biological control and silvicultural management of forest diseases
Patrick Sherwood

Associate Senior Lecturer in Forest Pathology

Expertise and Research Area:

  • Diplodia shoot and tip blight on pine;
  • Biochemical mechanisms of resistance and pathogenicity;
  • New methods and tools for pathogen detection and disease diagnostics;
  • Rapid phenotyping methods for resistance screening.
Iryna Matsiakh

Researcher
Analyst for SLU Forest Damage Centre (fungi, bacteria and viruses)

Expertise and Research Area:

  • Conifer needle diseases in nurseries and forests
  • Phytophthora pathogens
  • Invasive tree pathogens in urban and forest landscapes
  • Rapid, portable detection using LAMP 

Post Docs

Dusan Sadikovic

Expertise and Research Area:

  • Pine needle diseases
  • Forest mycology
Donnie Peterson

PhD, MCSA Fellow

Expertise and Research Area:

  • Emerald ash borer and other invasive Buprestids on broadleaves
  • eDNA technology for detection and monitoring of terrestrial populations

PhD Students

Noelia López-García

Phytophthora pathogens in forested landscapes

Ida Nordström

Technologies for early detection and monitoring of new and emerging forest pathogens; VOCs, NGS, MinION nanopore sequencing

Khaled Youssef

Heterobasidion root rot in Scots pine

Sezer Kaya

Pests and diseases associated with birch, poplar, aspen and hybrid aspen

Kinga Stolarek

Tree seeds fungi
Nursery diseases of birch

Mimmi Blomquist

Heterobasidion root rot and practical silvicultural management

Laboratory personnel

Maja Brus-Szkalej

Lab Manager
Plant Protection Biology

Delnia Sepahvand

Lab technician

Ectomycorrhiza (Truffles), Endomycorrhiza AMF, Mycorrhizal seedling, antioxidant enzyme activities in seedlings. Forest Pathogens