Beatrix Alsanius, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Beatrix Waechter Alsanius is an internationally leading researcher on sustainable food production in horticultural cropping systems, emphasizing on the use of microorganisms for environmentally-sound cropping systems, threats of human and plant pathogens in horticultural production chains and food safety of vegetables and fruit. She has a PhD from Bonn university, Germany and combined her assistant professorship at SLU (1992-1998) with different postdoctorate leaves at INRA, France and USDA-ARS/Washington State University, Pullman, WA, US. She was habilitated in horticulture in 1999 and in plant protection ecology in 2006 at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Since 2009 her current position is chair professor in horticulture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Alnarp, Sweden. During 2010 to 2013 she acted also as an adjunct professor in phytology at Université Laval, Québec, Canada and headed from 2009-2014 the international postgraduate school "Microbial Horticulture (µHORT)", funded by the Swedish research council Formas. Within her position at SLU Alnarp, she leads the research activities at the Microbial Horticulture Unit, focusing on plant, public and environmental health in the framework of sustainable development in horticulture.