People

Here you can find the information about the current lab members, alumni, and visitors.
Cezary Waszczak, Principal Investigator

Cezary completed his M.Sc. studies in Plant Biotechnology at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland. Later, he joined the lab of Dr Fraçoise Budar (INRAE, Versailles, France) as a trainee and worked on genetic characterization of cytoplasmic male sterility in Arabidopsis thaliana. Next, he started his doctoral research at VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology and VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology under joint supervision of Prof. Frank Van Breusegem and Prof. Joris Messens. During his Ph.D. he worked on an interdisciplinary project aiming at understanding the role of ROS in plant stress signaling. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree, he joined the research group of Prof. Jaakko Kangasjärvi (University of Helsinki, Finland) for a postdoctoral research on signal transduction pathways triggered by apoplastic ROS. In January 2023 Cezary became an early-career PI at the University of Helsinki. His current research interests revolve around cell walls (cell adhesion) and extrastomatal control of transpiration.

Olena Zamora, Postdoctoral Researcher

Olena obtained her Ph. D. degree from the University of Tartu, Estonia. Her doctoral training was supervised by Dr Dmitry Yarmolinsky and Prof. Hannes Kollist. She specializes in plant gas exchange and guard cell signaling. Her postdoctoral research combines the expertise of Kangasjärvi, Waszczak and Sierla labs and aims at characterization of guard cell signaling mutants identified from ozone-sensitivity forward genetic screen.

Marina Leal Gavarrón, Doctoral Researcher

Marina completed her M.Sc. studies in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology at the IBMCP-UPV, Valencia, Spain. Her Ph.D. project aims at mapping and characterization of cell wall mutants identified from ozone-sensitivity forward genetic screen.

David Lazaro Gimeno, Research Assiociate

David obtained his Ph. D. degree from the University of Valencia, Spain. His doctoral training was supervised by Dr Ana M. Ibars and Prof. Jose Reig. He specialized in anatomical and histological damages caused by tropospheric ozone in conifers. Later, he has accumulated a plethora of experience from two postdoctoral research periods during which he specialized in genome assemblies and plant/tree bioinformatics (Arabidopsis, spruce, aspen). At the University of Helsinki David studies the impact of pectin acetylation on the plant development.

Nikolas Nikolaou, M. Sc. student
Alumni and visitors

Natalie Hoffman, Visiting Researcher 10/2023 - 01/2024. Natalie on Google Scholar.

Roosa Haajanen, Doctoral Researcher 09/2023 - 11/2024. Roosa switched careers and decided to work in the industry. Roosa's LinkedIn profile.

Łukasz Wiczołek, Visiting Student (Erasmus traineeship) 08/2023 - 09/2023. Łukasz Wiczołek on LinkedIn and Google Scholar.

Reham Nabil Shehata, M.Sc. Student (M.Sc. thesis supervised by Dr Cezary Waszczak) 09/2021 - 05/2022. Reham's LinkedIn profile.

Liina Lassila, intern, B.Sc. Student (B.Sc. thesis co-supervised by Marina Leal-Gavarrón) 10/2021 - 02/2022.

Joana Almeida, Visiting Student (Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saude de Lisboa mobility programme) 08/2021 - 12/2021. Joana's LinkedIn profile.

Konrad Łosiński, B.Sc. student (B.Sc. thesis co-supervised by Marina Leal-Gavarrón and Dr Piotr Gawroński (WULS, Poland) 07/2019 - 09/2019. Konrad's LinkedIn profile.