1. Raffaella Balestrini, National Research Council (IBBR-CNR), Bari, 70126 Italy

Raffaella Balestrini is a CNR researcher since 1998. She is currently Director of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources of the CNR. The scientific activity of R. Balestrini is mainly focused on different aspects of the interactions between plants and symbiotic soil fungi. The main objective is the study of cellular and molecular bases of plant-microorganism interactions, with particular attention to mycorrhizal symbioses. Current research interests mainly address cellular and molecular aspects of plant development and interactions; the response of plants to biotic and abiotic stresses, with particular attention to the role of root-associated microorganisms; genomics and transcriptomics of symbiotic fungi; cellular specificity in mycorrhizal interactions.

2. Benoit Lefebvre, LIPME, University of Toulouse, INRAE, CNRS, Castanet-Tolosan, France

Benoit Lefebvre is INRAE research director and leader of the "Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis efficacy" team at LIPME, University of Toulouse, INRAE, CNRS. After many years spent characterizing membrane receptors involved in the perception of symbiotic signals produced by rhizobia or arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in leguminous and non-leguminous plants, he is now developing approaches aimed at understanding the variation in host response to mycorrhiza (nitrogen and phosphate nutrition, stimulation of plant growth and immunity) as a function of host genotype, symbiont genotype and environment, mainly in the grasses Brachypodium distachyon and wheat...

3. Roeland Berendsen, Plant–Microbe Interactions, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Roeland Berendsen is an Assistant Professor in the Plant-Microbe Interactions group at Utrecht University. His research explores how plants shape their microbiomes to enhance health and resilience, combining microbiome sequencing, molecular biology, and data science. His work has contributed to understanding disease-induced recruitment of beneficial microbes, microbiome-based prediction of plant vigor, and microbial interactions with mycorrhizal fungi. He also serves as Managing Director of NPEC Utrecht, a plant phenotyping facility that supports research on plant-environment interactions for sustainable agriculture.

4. Kathrin Wippel, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Kathrin Wippel obtained her PhD in Molecular Plant Physiology from the University of Erlangen, Germany, after which she joined Stanford University, USA, as a postdoc, investigating nitrogen-fixing root nodule symbiosis. At the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany, she explored host preference of commensal bacterial communities. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and she is studying how root microbiota composition differs between plant species, how this is established, and what the functions are of adapted microbial communities. She also investigates synthetic bacterial communities, metabolomics, and transcriptomics to understand differential effects of different microbial communities on the host.

5. Davide Bulgarelli, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, UK

Davide Bulgarelli obtained a PhD in Crop Sciences at the University of Milan before leaving his native Italy for Germany, to take a post-doctoral position at the Max Planck Institute of Cologne. This experience represented Davide’s first exposure to the plant microbiota, and it was “love at first sight”.  In 2013 Davide established his own research group at the University of Dundee (UK), where he is currently a Reader interested in dissecting the molecular basis of plant-microbiota interactions and facilitating translational applications.

6. Stefanie Ranf, Department of Biology, Plant and microbial biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Stefanie Ranf is a full professor in the Plant and Microbial Biology group at the University of Fribourg. The focus of her research is on understanding the dynamic interactions between plants and bacteria at the molecular level. In an interdisciplinary approach, she investigates how plants sense microbial colonization and activate an immune response, but also how the bacteria adapt to the plant host environment and how this contributes to their persistence in the host plant. The major research areas are immune sensing of bacteria through plant cell surface receptors and bacterial cell wall dynamics during plant colonization.

7. Bart Lamiroy, Center for Research in Information and Communication Science and Technology (CReSTIC), University of Reims, France

Bart Lamiroy is a full Professor in Computer Science and former head of the CReSTIC research unit at the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne. He currently coordinates the university-wide AI4U program dedicated to developing AI across all scopes of its missions: education, research, support and outreach. He obtained his PhD at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, and his early career was dedicated to image analysis and interpretation, mainly directed to information extraction from graphical documents. His current work concerns Machine Learning and Data Analysis, and more particularly issues related to performance analysis and comparison between classification methods.

8. Laure Mamy, AgroParisTech, University of Paris-Saclay, INRAE, France

Laure Mamy is Director of Research at INRAE in the ECOSYS Joint Research Unit (Palaiseau, France). Her research mostly focuses on studying (field, laboratory) and modelling the fate of pesticides (conventional, biocontrol) and other organic compounds (pharmaceuticals, PFAS...) in the environment as well as their ecotoxicological effects. In parallel, she is environmental fate expert for ANSES in the context of risk assessment of pesticides for their approval in Europe and placing on the market in France.

9. Marc Ongena, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech/University of Liège, Belgium

Marc Ongena is a Research Director at the FRS-FNRS and co-leads the MiPI laboratory. His research focuses on soil-dwelling bacteria with strong potential for plant disease control, offering sustainable alternatives to chemical pesticides. The group studies key plant-associated genera such as Bacillus and Pseudomonas, aiming to unravel the molecular mechanisms that drive their biocontrol properties. A major area of interest is the chemical nature and ecological role of secondary metabolites—particularly non-ribosomally synthesized compounds like cyclic lipopeptides and bacteriocins—involved in plant protection. A significant part of their work also explores how microbial interactions across species and kingdoms influence the production of these bioactive compounds.