Lead Instructors
Nancy Collette
Technical Service and Applications manager at VICAM, A Waters Business. She has over 25 years of experience in mycotoxin analytical methods development and the analysis of mycotoxins.
Erick De Wolf
Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University. His research focuses on modeling and plant disease forecasting systems, with recent emphasis on Fusarium Head Blight.
David Geiser
Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Director of the Fusarium Research Center, Pennsylvania State University. Experience with molecular evolution of fungi and fungal population genetics.
Rudolf Krska
Professor at BOKU Vienna and Queen’s University – Belfast. Coordinates the EU project MyToolBox, has evaluated the impact of trichothecenes on humans for FAO/WHO (JECFA), and is among the Web of Science’s top 1% most cited authors.
John F. Leslie
University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University. Over 30 years experience with Fusarium genetics and population analysis.
Antonio Logrieco
Director of the Institute for the Science of Food Production, National Council of Research (CNR-ISPA), Italy. Specializes in epidemiology, taxonomy, and molecular/chemical characterization of toxigenic Fusarium species.
Brett Summerell
Director Science and Conservation at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (Australia). Over 30 years of experience with the taxonomy, identification and description of Fusarium species, and the plant diseases caused by these fungi. Co-authored two lab manuals on Fusarium identification.
Chris Toomajian
Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University. Interests include fungal genomics, population genetics, and speciation, with expertise in the molecular signatures of natural selection.
Anne Van Dipengen
A fungal geneticist in the Biointerations and Plant Health unit of Wageningen University and Research. She worked for several years at the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute studying Fusarium infections in humans and animals, but now focuses on plant pathogens and mycotoxigenic species.
Jin-rong Xu
Professor in Botany and Plant Pathology at Purdue University. Director of Purdue-NWAFU (Shaanxi, China) Joint Research Center. 25 years of experience with classic, molecular, and genomic studies of F. graminearum and F. verticillioides, particularly with the signal transduction pathways that regulate pathogenesis and development.