Chunxia Wang
She received her PhD in Microbiology from Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, China. After graduation she worked in several academic & industrial places in Switzerland, Canada, and Virginia, before moving to Florida. She has strong research experience in Plant-Microbe Interactions, especially beneficial microbe for agricultural applications. As a lab manager in Dr. Levy’s team, she is excited being involved in the developments of novel approaches to control citrus greening and citrus tristeza virus in Florida. In her spare time, she likes outdoor activities, she especially enjoys taking in the natural beauty of Florida landscapes with her hiking team on weekends.
Donielle Turner
Donielle has a BS in Environmental management in agriculture from the University of Florida. She graduated cum lude. She began working in Dr Levy’s lab at IFAS, CREC, Lake Alfred, University of Florida in 2017. Her work in the lab varies from testing for diseases to imaging fluorescent dyes in tree vascular tissues. She works in the field as well as the laboratory. She maintains the psyllid colonies and propagates new HLB infected trees.
Maryam Khalilzadeh
Maryam is a PhD candidate at University of Florida Plant Pathology Department. She received my Bachler degree in Plant Protection from the Department of Agriculture of Isfahan University of Technology, Iran. Later, she received her master’s degree in Plant Pathology (Virology) at the Department of Plant Virology of the University of Shiraz, Iran. She started my PhD in January 2019, working with Dr. Amit Levy at Citrus Research and Education Centre, Lake Alfred. The focus of her research is cell biology and molecular studies during plant-pathogen interactions of the Citrus Tristeza Virus.
Chiara Bernardini
Chiara Bernardini is a postdoc researcher in Dr. Levy’s Lab. She got her bachelor at the University of Udine, Italy, with an investigation on putative causal agents of disease in grapevines affected by leaf reddish in 2014. She received her master’s degree cum laude on “Fungal pathogen associated with the GTD” at the University of Udine in 2016. From 2017 she has been a member of the Italian Agronomist association (ODAF). She worked in 2016-2017 as laboratory technician for Vivai Coperativi Rauscedo, the leading company in the production of grapevine plants. She received her PhD in Agricultural Biotechnology Sciences cum laude in May 2021 with a thesis on “sieve element specific responses to phytoplasma infection: new insight on the role of sieve element occlusion proteins and callose”. In 2021 she worked as postdoc in the University of Udine. The aim of her work was to find new methods for the detection of pathogen associated with Actinidia decay. From July 2021 she has been a postdoc in Levy’s lab with the focus on plant pathogen interaction, CLas-Citrus in particular. She is interested in microscopy and particularly in the observation of the phloem and imaging analysis. I like challenging topics and learning any new software.
Chun-Yi (Tony) Lin
Tony studied and graduated at National Taiwan University. During his doctoral program, he worked on different systemic citrus diseases, especially focused on the relation and the interaction between citrus plants and citrus viroids. He is a postdoctoral researcher at CREC, Lake Alfred, University of Florida. His current research is primarily focused on insect-virus and HLB bacterium interaction using Asian citrus psyllid and the novel insect virus identification and characterization.
Jacobo Robledo
Jacobo Robledo is an agricultural engineer from the University of Caldas – Colombia. Since 2019 he has worked in research initiatives regarding the most important diseases of fruit trees in the Caribbean cost of Colombia such as anthracnose of mango, fusarium wilt of banana, and citrus HLB. In 2021 Jacobo joined the University of Florida as a graduate assistant in Dr. Amit Levy’s Lab at the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center and currently he is pursuing a master’s degree in plant pathology. His research focuses on the mechanisms involved in the induced and natural tolerance of citrus to HLB and its interactions at anatomical, physiological, and molecular level.
Poulami Sarkar
Her research interests involve understanding the molecular interplay during plant-insect-microbe interactions with emphasis on plant defense and immunity. During my Ph.D., my goal was to study SA/JA signaling pathways induced by aphids in Brassicas and develop aphid-tolerant Brassica juncea using genes from a wild crucifer. Her last post-doc includes studying the molecular mechanisms underlying the psyllid-Liberibacter relationship to disrupt Liberibacter transmission to plants. Her current research here in UF/IFAS-CREC focuses on Liberibacter-induced SA regulation in citrus and developing transgene-free gene-edited citrus using CRISPR.
Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/pol_sarkar_