Officers

President:
Dee Carter, School of Molecular Biosciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Email: d.carter@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Ph.: +61 2 9351 5383

Vice President:
Diana Leemon, Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Queensland. Animal Research Institute, Locked Mail Bag 4, Moorooka, Qld 4105, Australia.
Email: diana.leemon@dpi.qld.gov.au

Treasurer:
Anthony Francis, CRC for Forestry, Private Bag 12, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
Email: Anthony.Francis.79@gmail.com

Membership Secretary:
David Ratkowsky, School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 54, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
Email: D.Ratkowsky@utas.edu.au

Secretary:
Eric McKenzie, Landcare Research, Private Bag 92170, Auckland Mail Centre, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.
Email: McKenzieE@landcareresearch.co.nz
Ph.: +64 9 574 4100

Councillor:
Sandra Abell, School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns Campus, McGregor Road, Smithfield, Cairns 4870, Australia.
Email: sandra.abell@jcu.edu.au

Councillor:
Anna Hopkins, Scion, Private Bag 3020, Rotorua, New Zealand.
Email: Anna.Hopkins@scionresearch.com
Ph: +64 7343 5777

Past-President:
Teresa Lebel, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Private Bag 2000, Birdwood Avenue, South Yarra, Victoria 3141, Australia.
Email: teresa.lebel@rbg.vic.gov.au

Webmaster:
Nai Tran-Dinh, CSIRO Food and Nutritional Sciences, 11 Julius Avenue, Riverside Corporate Park, North Ryde, NSW 2113 Australia. PO Box 52 North Ryde NSW 1670
Email: nai.tran-dinh@csiro.au
Ph: +61 2 9490 8473

Journal Editor
David Orlovich, Department of Botany, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Email: orlovich@mac.com
Ph: +64 3 4799060

Dee Carter – AMS President

Dee did a degree in microbiology and biochemistry at Otago University, New Zealand, where she became captivated by molecular biology and its application to microorganisms.  She then moved to London and undertook a PhD at Imperial College on mapping avirulence genes in Phytophthera infestans.  After a two-year stint in Montpellier, France, working on Alzheimer’s disease, she gladly returned to the fungal world and took up a postodoctoral fellowship in California at Roche Molecular Systems and UC Berkeley. PCR had just opened the world of phylogenetics and molecular ecology to microbiology, and the Berkeley lab was at the forefront of applying this to the fungi and had just moved into medical mycology; Dee and colleagues worked on the endemic pathogens Coccidioides immitis and Histoplasma capsulatum and used molecular population genetics to prove that wiley deuteromycetes like Coccidioides are somehow able undergo sexual exchange when no-one is looking.  Dee moved to Australia in 1995 to take up a lectureship at the University of Sydney, where she has continued her interest in sex and the population genetics and ecology of medically important fungi with a focus on the local pathogen Cryptococcus gattii.  Why the interest in fungal sex?  Sexual exchange facilitates adaptation and evolution, and means genes governing virulence can be passed around members of a population, posing challenges for the diagnosis and treatment of fungal diseases.  Sex also frequently produces spores that can initiate fungal disease. Finding that there is more money in drugs than sex these days, Dee has expended her research interests lately to investigate proteins that are expressed by Cryptococcus during mammalian infection. The long-term aim of this work will be to identify therapeutic and diagnostic markers for the treatment of fungal diseases, which remains extremely difficult. As well as research, Dee teaches undergraduate microbiology and is head of the Microbiology discipline within the School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences at Sydney University. She became president of AMS in 2009.

Diana Leemon – Vice President

Diana studied at the University of Queensland (UQ) majoring in Botany and Mycology before working in plant pathology followed by timber pathology research at UQ. After a number of years she decided to head off into high school teaching, so completed a graduate diploma in education and taught science, maths and biology in state schools, then later moved to Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to teach international students. Completing a graduate diploma in biotechnology at QUT awakened an interest in returning to science research. Diana took up a short, temporary research appointment with the Qld Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) in 2000 to investigate the fungal control of cattle tick because “they were desperate to find a mycologist”. Thus began a close and beneficial relationship with the fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana. Ten years on Diana is a permanent senior scientist with QDPI having in the interim; acquired a Master of applied science (QUT), a PhD (UQ) and developed up her own research area: “Fungal biopesticide control of livestock ectoparasites”. Recent projects include using Metarhizium and Beauveria to control sheep lice and sheep blowflies, feedlot nuisance flies, cattle tick and buffalo flies, and the small hive beetle that is rampaging through beehives in Qld and parts of NSW. Diana was persuaded to take up the AMS vice presidency because she is passionate about the need to lift the profile of mycology and interaction between mycologists in Australasia, before mycologists here have to be listed as rare and endangered species.

Anthony Francis – AMS Treasurer

Anthony Francis is a postdoctoral mycologist and plant pathologist with the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research (TIAR, University of Tasmania), Australia. He moved from Western Australia to Tasmania to work on his current Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) project seeking management solutions for fungal root rots in tropical perennial horticulture and hardwood plantation species in Indonesia, Malaysia and Northern Australia. Since moving to Tasie teaching undergraduate mycology for the past three years with the University and discovering the tropics (for a temperate climate kind of guy) have been highlights. Following undergraduate studies in Zoology and Botany at the University of Western Australia (with honours in botanical restoration ecology) his PhD with Murdoch University Western Australia reassessed the morphological and molecular systematics of sequestrate (truffle-like) mycorrhizal fungi related to the mushroom genus Cortinarius. As AMS treasurer Anthony is working to streamline the Society’s book-keeping to make sure members know their membership status and financial compliance under incorporation is simple and efficient.

Anna Hopkins – AMS Councillor

Anna Hopkins is a postdoctoral research fellow in forest pathology with Scion (the New Zealand Forest Research Institute) based in Rotorua, New Zealand. Her main area of research is the ecology and biology of the canker fungus Neonectria fuckeliana, a stem pathogen of Pinus radiata. In addition, she undertakes routine diagnostics for pathogens of forest trees and is involved with a number of projects examining the effect of climate change on forest pathogens in Australia and New Zealand. Originally from Australia, Anna undertook a PhD at the University of Tasmania and the CRC for Forestry looking at the taxonomy and ecology of wood-inhabiting fungi in native eucalypt forests. She taught mycology and plant pathology at the University of Tasmania for three years and has experience working with mycorrhiza and in plant ecology and restoration biology. During her term on the AMS council, Anna would especially like to re-engage student members of the society through more rewarding participation at society conferences and other events.

Nai Tran-Dinh - Webmaster

Nai Tran-Dinh is a project leader with research interests in the application of molecular biology to food microbiology research. He has expertise in mycological and bacterial molecular biology and applies this to the area of innovative food processing. Current research activities include investigating the response of both bacterial and fungal spores to moist heat and studying the mechanistic basis of those responses. Nai has previously investigated molecular markers for strain level differentiation of several fungal genera including Aspergillus, Fusarium and Alternaria. He has also investigated the application of real-time PCR for the detection of Clostridium botulinum in food.