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Mitja's curriculum vitae

Current Position and Education
since December 2018 
  • Senior lecturer University of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences, Christchurch, New Zealand
since 2017
  • Associated investigator Biomolecular interaction centre, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
2016 - 2018
  • Lecturer University of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences, Christchurch, New Zealand
2014 – 2016​
  • Postdoctoral researcher Agroscope, Department for food microbiology, Project REDYMO, Wädenswil, Switzerland
2011 – 2014
  • Postdoctoral researcher Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Advisor Prof. Julia Vorholt
    • Visiting scholar department of Microbial Ecology, University of Vienna, Austria. Laboratory of Prof. Michael Wagner and Prof. Holger Daims (1 week)
2007 – 2012
  • Ph.D. in Microbial Ecology Dutch Institute for Ecology, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Defended 27.03.2012 at the Free University, Amsterdam. Advisors: Prof. Johan Leveau and Prof. George Kowalchuk
    • Visiting scholar at the department for Plant Pathology University of California Davis, United States. Laboratory of Prof. Johan Leveau (3 months)
    • Visiting scholar at the department Ecophysiology of Plants University Bonn, Germany. Laboratory of Prof. Lukas Schreiber (1 month)
2001 – 2007
  • ​Diploma in Biology (Major in botany, microbiology)
Presentations
2019
  • Materials Cluster Symposium, Christchurch,  New Zealand. Sweet leaf of mine
  • Free University Berlin Microbiological symposium, (Invited) Berlin, Germany. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
  • Departmental Seminar Series Massey University Albany campus, Auckland, New Zealand. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
  • Manaaki Whenua - Landcare research, Lincoln, New Zealand. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
  • Departmental Seminar Series Bioprotection Research Core, Lincoln, New Zealand. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
2018
  • The Plant Microbiome, (Invited) Hurghada, Egypt. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
  • Microbiological colloquium, (Invited) Jena, Germany. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
  • NZMEC 5, (Invited) Auckland, New Zealand. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution
  • Invited seminar Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. Leaf surface microbial ecology at the bacterial individual resolution - understanding bacteria one cell at a time
2017
  • Queenstown research week, Queenstown, New Zealand. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at the single-cell resolution
  • Invited seminar University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at the single-cell resolution
2016
  • NZMS-NZSBMB conference, Christchurch, New Zealand. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at the single-cell resolution
  • Invited seminar University of Canterbury, Christchurch , New Zealand. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
  • Invited seminar University Changins - Haute Ecole de Viticulture et Oenologie, Nyon, Switzerland. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
2015
  • Invited seminar Albrecht-von-Haller-Institute for Plant Sciences, University Göttingen, Germany. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
  • Invited talk at the selection symposium “NRW Rückkehrer” – North Rhine Westphalia Return fellowship for early career investigators, Düsseldorf, Germany. Probiotic bacterial communities on plant leaves.
  • Invited talk Symposium Selection and spread of antibiotics in agro-ecosystems and food production environments Posieux, Switzerland. Conjugal Gene Transfer to Enteropathogenic Bacteria in the Phyllosphere
  • Phyllosphere 10 symposium, Ascona, Switzerland. Remus-Emsermann MNP, Gisler P, Pelludat C, Drissner D. Conjugal Gene Transfer to Enteropathogenic Bacteria in the Phyllosphere
  • Invited seminar plant-soil-interactions group, Agroscope Reckenholz, Switzerland. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
  • Invited seminar institute for Soil and Terrestrial Environmental Physics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Spatial investigation of bacterial communities on Arabidopsis thaliana
  • Guest seminar winter colloquium, Agroscope, Wädenswil, Switzerland. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
  • Poster presentation EDAR 2, Wernigerode, Germany. Conjugal Gene Transfer to Enteropathogenic Bacteria in the Phyllosphere
2014
  • Invited talk DFG (German Science Foundation) Emmy-Noether fellowship selection committee, Bonn, Germany. Epiphytic bacterial communities: examining ecological factors that govern leaf colonization at the micrometer scale.
  • Invited seminar Institute Botany 2, University Würzburg, Germany. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
  • Invited seminar Max Planck Institute for Breeding Sciences, Cologne, Germany. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
  • Invited seminar Institute for Cellular and Molecular Botany, University Bonn, Germany. The ecology of leaf colonizing bacteria at a single-cell resolution
2013
  • Invited seminar institute for ecology, systematic and evolution, University Paris Sud, Orsay, France. Natural bacterial community pattern on the phylloplane of Arabidopsis thaliana
2012
  • Invited seminar Institute Botany 2, University Würzburg, Germany. The Ecology of Bacterial Individuality Phyllosphere communities at a single-cell level
  • Invited seminar department of Environmental Microbiology, Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland. The reproductive success bioreporter CUSPER and its use in single-cell ecology
2011
  • Invited seminar department of Microbial Physiology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. The ecology of bacterial individuality
  • Invited seminar department Experimental Evolution, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. CUSPER - Linking environmental heterogeneity to reproductive success at a single-cell resolution
  • Guest seminar department Ecophysiology of Plants, University of Bonn, Germany. Measuring cuticular fructose diffusion at a micrometer resolution
2010
  • Guest seminar department Plant Pathology, Leveau Lab UC-Davis, Davis CA USA. The CUSPER bioreporter and its applications
  • Guest seminar department Plant Pathology, Lindow Lab UC-Berkeley, Berkeley CA USA. The CUSPER bioreporter and its applications
  • ISME 13 conference Seattle WA, USA. CUSPER – Linking Environmental heterogeneity to reproductive success at a single-cell resolution
  • Phyllosphere 9 symposium Corvallis OR, USA. CUSPER – Linking Environmental heterogeneity to reproductive success at a single-cell resolution
2009
  • Guest seminar department Ecophysiology of Plants, University of Bonn, Germany. Bacterial bioreporters to describe in environments and populations
  • NERN days Lunteren, The Netherlands. Bacterial bioreporters to describe in environments and populations
2008
  • NVvM spring meeting Papendal, The Netherlands. Bacterial bioreporters to quantify individuality
Miscellaneous 
Professional services
Editorial services
  • Since 2020 Editorial advisory board Journal of Basic Microbiology (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15214028) 
  • Since 2019 Associate editor for Plant-Environment interaction (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/25756265)
  • Since 2019 Review editor for Frontiers in Terrestrial Microbiology
  • Since 2019 Review editor for Frontiers in Plant Microbe Interactions

Professional society services
  • Treasurer - New Zealand Society of biochemistry and molecular biology (NZSBMB, https://www.nzsbmb.org) 

Peer-Review for
  • Applied and Environmental Microbiology
  • Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
  • Current Opinion in Plant Biology
  • Environmental Microbiology
  • F1000research
  • FEMS microbiology letters
  • Frontiers in Microbiology
  • Frontiers in Environmental Sciences
  • Journal of Advanced Research
  • Journal of Applied Microbiology
  • New Zealand Journal of Ecology
  • New Phytologist
  • Scientific reports
  • Standards in Genomic Sciences
  • The ISME Journal
  • ​United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF)

Conferences
Organization and chairing of the session “The role of Microbes in Ecology”
GFOE annual meeting 2015, Göttingen, Germany
Organization and of the session "Environmental Microbiology" Joint NZMS-NZSBMB conference 2016, Christchurch, New Zealand 
Organization and of the session "Plant-Microbe Interactions" Joint NZMS-NZSBMB conference 2018, Dunedin, New Zealand 
Organisation panel Biomolecular Interaction centre Satellite at the queenstown research week
Organisation panel and treasurer joint NZMS-NZSBMB conference 2021, Christchurch, New Zealand

Academic services
Current PhD students:
  • Simisola Oso
  • Rudolf Schlechter
  • Michal Bernach
  • Moritz Miebach
  • Jana Wold
Current MSc students:
  • Kate Wright 
  • Renji Jiang
  • Christian Stocks
previous students: Maria Gekenidis, Leandra Knecht, Hannes Horn, Muyiwa "Emmanuel" Adewale, Erica Boyd



Awards and honors
  • 2018 University of Canterbury Early and Emerging Career Researcher 2018 Award
  • 2015 10th International Symposium on Phyllosphere Microbiology – Travel grant
  • 2012 28th New Phytologist Symposium, Rhodes, Greece – Best poster Award 
  • 2012 28th New Phytologist Symposium, Rhodes, Greece – Travel grant
  • 2010 NERN Publication Award for Remus-Emsermann MNP and Leveau JHJ (2010) Linking environmental heterogeneity and reproductive success at single-cell resolution. The ISME Journal 4, 215–222 

Acquired funding
  • 2018 University of Canterbury Early and Emerging Career Research Award (10,000 NZD)
  • 2018 Royal Society of New Zealand - Marsden grant (PI Monica Gerth (939,000 NZD)
  • 2017 Royal Society of New Zealand - Marsden Fast Start grant (300,000 NZD)
  • 2017 BIC PhD scholarship 2017 (~90,000 NZD)
  • 2017 Brian mason trust grant (15,000 NZD)
  • 2017 BIC seed funding (10,000 NZD)
  • 2017 University of Canterbury, College of Science, PhD scholarship (~90,000 NZD)
  • 2014 ETH D-Biol strategic IT project startup funding for the project “PyCIAL” an integrated environment for microscopy image analysis (10,000 CHF; PI Julia Vorholt; Project “Spatial analysis of bacterial colonization patterns”)
  • 2011 Competitive internal funding Dutch institute for Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) automatic microscopy stage (12,000 €; PI Johan Leveau; Project “The ecology of bacterial individuality”)
 
Society memberships
  • American society for microbiology (ASM)
  • International society for microbial ecology (ISME)
  • International Society for molecular plant microbe interactions (IS-MPMI)
  • New Zealand Society of biochemistry and molecular biology (NZSBMB) 
  • New Zealand Microbiological Society (NZMS)
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  • Home
  • News
  • Publications
  • GROUP
  • Opportunities
  • Collaborations
  • Contact
  • Mitja's-CV
  • TOOLS
  • Chromatic bacteria links