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International Society for Plant Pathology    

ISPP Executive 2023-2028  

The ISPP is pleased to announce the appointment of the incoming ISPP Executive for 2023-2028

Yong-Hwan Lee

ISPP President 2023-2028

The world population is projected to reach over 9 billion by 2050. Efforts to meet the anticipated global need for affordable, nutritious, and safe food face complex challenges, one of which is how to protect crop health without continuously incurring high economic, ecological, and environmental costs. FAO estimates that up to 40 percent of food crops are lost every year due to plant diseases and pests. New diseases, re-emerging diseases, and increasingly extreme weather events driven by climate changes pose more threats to stable food production. It is imperative that we continuously thrive to offer effective and sustainable strategies for protecting plant health by advancing our understanding of how diverse forms of plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions affect plant growth and health and translating this understanding to field deployable solutions. However, science is not sufficient for ensuring global food/nutrition security. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and worldwide conflicts exposed the fragility of globally-networked food production and distribution systems. Because sustainable crop production is a global challenge, we must engage, educate, and empower diverse global stakeholders, not just scientists, to meet the challenge.

The International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP) has served as the global forum to address such needs by fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration among the member societies and scientists. I am very honored to be considered as a candidate for the ISPP President and welcome the opportunity to help strengthen and diversify the ISPP’s role in global food security. If I am elected as a President, I want to focus on the followings in collaboration with membership societies: a) help strengthen/expand various international alliances formed via ISPP, b) raise the public’s awareness of the importance of healthy plants in ensuring the global equality and sustainability, and c) empower and connect next generations of plant health professionals around the world so that they can effectively work together to protect food security and ecosystem sustainability.

Laura Mugnai  

Vice President 2023-2028 representing Subject Matter Committees  

I have served ISPP as a Councilor representing the Arab Society for Plant Protection for around thirty years. In addition, I served as a member of the ISPP Special Projects Committee for five years in the 1980s under the chairmanship of Dr. Jurgen Franz. I am aware of ISPP mission and activities and believe in its role in promoting plant health globally.  

During a significant part of my career, I served as a senior scientist (virologist) at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) for around 21 years. This gave me the opportunity to build scientific ties with scientists from all over the world.  

In 1979, I played a role in establishing the Arab Society for Plant Protection, and following establishment, I served it in different capacities; as Secretary-Treasurer, Vice-President and President. In addition, I also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Arab Journal of Plant Protection for over 20 years. Similarly, I served the Mediterranean Phytopathological Union in different capacities; as Board member, Vice-President and President, as well as a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Phytopathologia Mediterranea.  

All the above suggest that I am a strong believer in collective efforts within the scientific community, and as ISPP Vice President (2018-2023), the experiences  I gained over the years will permit me to easily promote the ISPP mission and activities globally, but more so within the Arab and Mediterranean region.

Andrew Geering  

Vice President 2023-2028 representing the organizing ICPP2023  

I am an Associate Professor at The University of Queensland and current President of the Australasian Plant Pathology Society (APPS). My discipline expertise is plant virology, although I have dabbled in mycology throughout my career and also led general biosecurity projects. I have been a member of the APPS for over 30 years, and contributed to the running of this society by being Senior Editor for Virology for the journal Australasian Plant Pathology and acting as Program Coordinator for the 21st Biennial Conference of the APPS (2017) and the 11th Australasian Plant Virology Workshop (2014).

I am Chair of the Organizing Committee for the International Congress of Plant Pathology 2028 (ICPP2028), to be held on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. I have also been active in the international plant pathology community, having held three successive terms as Chair of the Caulimoviridae Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and I was also Chair of the ProMusa Virus Study Group of Biodiversity International.

 As a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society for Plant Pathology, my first priority would be to ensure the success of the ICPP2028 by providing a channel of communication between the conference organizing committee and the ISPP. It is very important that the ICPP2028 reflects the diverse interests of affiliate societies of the ISPP and appeals to a broad audience.  I consider that we are hosting the ICPP2028 on behalf of our whole region and I am keen to engage and promote the participation of plant pathologists throughout South East Asia and Oceania in organizing the Congress. For most of my career, I have worked to solve disease problems of tropical crops and this is a focus I would like to bring to the ISPP. I would particularly like to promote programs for smallholder farmers, to ensure they have fundamental requirements for a healthy crop like clean seed and they are also provided with good training materials to avoid indiscriminate use of agrichemicals.

Teresa Coutinho

Secretary General 2023-2028

Experience with national societies Although I am a member of several societies in South Africa, I have intentionally only actively been involved in the Southern African Society for Plant Pathology (SASPP).  I joined in 1984 and was involved in organizing three conferences. I served as the regional representative for eight years and was responsible for organizing seminars, workshops etc. I was President of the Society from 2012-2015 and become a Fellow in 2017.  This year my book will be published entitled “History of plant pathology in South Africa” which includes a section on the SASPP.  I am extremely passionate about the Society. I am now on a mission to ensure that documentation related to the Society is stored appropriately and intend reinitiating the newsletter the “SA plant pathologist” which was discontinued in 1998 due to high printing costs.

Experience with international societies I am a member of the American Phytopathological Society (APS), Australasian Plant Pathology Society (APPS), British Plant Pathology Society (BPPS) and the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).  I served on the APS Education Committee (2015-2017) for three years and was the ASM South African ambassador from 2016 to 2018.  I served on the executive nomination committee for the International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP) in 2013 and 2018.  I am a co-chair on the Specialist Committee on Plant Pathogenic Bacterial Nomenclature.  I have served on this committee since 2012.

My contribution to ISPP if nominated to the position as Secretary-General  Throughout my career I have been actively involved in the administrative side of running research programmes, at the National Research Foundation and at the University of Pretoria.  For over 20 years, I fined tuned these skills while managing (administratively) the Tree Protection Cooperative Programme, directed at the time by Mike Wingfield. I consider these skills to be one of my strengths which can easily be applied to the position of Secretary-General of ISPP. 

 What I would like to achieve for the ISPP As I move towards the end of my career, I am determined to contribute to ensuring the continuation of Societies, including the ISPP. In my experience, there is a general apathy among the younger generation towards scientific societies.  I would like to change their opinion.  I believe this can be achieved by promoting ISPP activities on, for example, social media.  Although the Society has a profile on Facebook, I discovered that none of my postgraduate students belong to this medium – they consider it to be an “old peoples” platform.  Another method of ensuring continuation of the ISPP is to recruit early career plant pathologists to the various Special Committees.

 Although there are a number of African plant pathology societies, there is a need to enhance the ISPP profile among them.  Through APS, there is now an African Phytopathology Group who is actively recruiting members.  We should link to, and expand this group, beyond APS.  Again, we should target early career scientists.

 

Mathews Paret   

Treasurer 2023-2028

I joined as the Treasurer of International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP) in 2018. In this role, one of the first steps taken is to strategize moving ISPP’s non-revenue generating funds to a revenue generating investment. This included working with ISPP bank finance advisor to develop 3-year ISPP investment portfolio contract, which has recently matured to create an interest of $14,500 for ISPP. I have routinely engaged with associated societies, established credit card payment option for memberships, manage ISPP Checking, Savings, Investment, and PayPal accounts, U.S tax filing, Audits, Liability insurance, Annual U.S registration, and other financial matters relevant to Food Security Journal revenue, contracts, executive and editorial board meetings etc. Most recently, I have led efforts with the executive board in establishing the framework for the newly established ISPP Resilience Bursary. 

 I am very thankful for the nomination to the ISPP Treasurer role from 2023-2028. If selected, my commitment is to continue strengthening the budget management of ISPP on all aspects noted above and study the process for 100% ownership of the Food Security Journal from Springer, work with Australasian Plant Pathology Society in financial planning of the 2028 International Congress of Plant Pathology in Gold Coast and improve transparency of ISPP finances to all members. An area of interest is to enhance partnerships with associated societies in financial matters, learning from their best practices, findings ways to engage with plant pathology societies of countries/regions which are currently not actively involved with ISPP. I like to continue to be a good listener to everyone and take ISPP to its optimum potential of financial independency and strength in the coming years.

Jan E. Leach

Immediate ISPP Past President (2023-2028)  

Over the past few years, plant pathologists have confronted unexpected challenges that have impacted our ability to find or provide solutions to plant health problems.  Challenges have included a global human health pandemic, national and regional conflict, and weather disasters, as well as the many downstream consequences resulting from these events.  Because our discipline is, by necessity, collaborative, these global challenges have been particularly disruptive.  But plant pathologists are resilient. Working together, particularly through the alliances fostered by the International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP), we will build upon opportunities afforded by the challenges to improving plant health. 

 During my presidency, ISPP Executive has collectively worked to enhance and stabilize the society alliances that are fundamental to ISPP.  We have worked to improve our membership connections and outward face (updated website & logo, and promoted our Newsletter & activities). Despite interruptions by the COVID pandemic, we have strengthened our international presence through active participation in planning for meetings associated with the International Year of Plant Health, discussions for a Global Surveillance System for crop diseases, and efforts to integrate with EPPO, NPPO, and other international regulatory agencies.  We have worked with the publisher of Food Security (Springer) and the Editorial Board to strengthen the health of our journal. As Past-President of ISPP, I will support the incoming President as they work to promote ISPP’s international alliances, work with members broadly, and advocate for the science of plant pathology.  As the current Past-President Greg Johnson has done for me, I hope to provide historical knowledge and relevant guidance that will support the new President and Executive as ISPP moves forward.