Lab members

Dr. Matthew Bakker

Principal investigator.
Matthew completed his PhD in Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota. He did a post-doc at Colorado State University and worked as a staff scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture before joining the Department of Microbiology at the University of Manitoba. Matthew teaches Microbes In Our Environment, Introductory Biogeochemistry, and contributes to Graduate Microbiology and to Evolution of Fungal Pathogens.

M. Shimosh Kurera

PhD student (co-advised with Dr. Sean Walkowiak).
Shimosh is developing methods for rapidly identifying unknown Fusarium and rust strains via MALDI biotyping. Shimosh is an alumnus of the EvoFunPath training program.

Rapid identification of Fusarium species causing head blight in Canada using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry
Identifying Wheat Rusts Using MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry

Raveena Manikku Badu

Technician 3.
Raveena helps keep the lab running smoothly, and works on soil bacterial isolations, genome sequencing & genomics.

Laura Los

MSc student.
Laura is using metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to investigate how farmer management decisions impact microbial contributions to nitrous oxide emissions in agricultural soils. Her research is a part of the LEAP project.

Microbe of the Month: Fusarium graminearum

Hariniha Selvarajan

MSc student.
Hariniha is investigating interactions between Fusarium graminearum and bioactive compounds in barley.

Microbe of the Month: Fusarium graminearum

Rebecca Pagès

PhD student.
Rebecca is using metagenomics to understand how soil microbial communities respond to plants and to agricultural inputs like urease inhibitors and nitrification inhibitors.

Varisha Rehman

Co-op student.
Varisha is screening wild strains of Fusarium graminearum for fungicide sensitivity.

Avery Hoeppner

Undergraduate honours research (former co-op student & undergraduate student research awardee).
Avery is researching responses of Fusarium graminearum to plant polyamines.

Sara Mills

Undergraduate.
Sara is supporting our whole-plant experiments and our field sampling around southern Manitoba.

Blanka Kyralová

PhD student.
Blanka is researching the biological detoxification of trichothecene mycotoxins.

Dianbo Sun

Undergraduate honours research.
Dianbo is working on gene editing in Fusarium graminearum.

Anna Shypilova

Technician 3.
Anna is characterizing communities of oomycetes and Fusarium spp. in soils associated with pulse crops under different rotation systems, as well as testing several of our candidate inoculants for plant growth promotion effects.

Frank Romero

Visiting scholar.
Frank is visiting us from the State University of Campinas (Brazil) for an internship, thanks to the generous support of the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program.