Rita Lourenço Costa

I am a senior research scientist at INIAV – The Portuguese National Institute for Agriculture and Veterinary Research, with a degree in Forestry and PhD in Plant Biotechnology, both from the University of Lisbon. I am Head of Molecular Biology Lab of Forest Research Unit of INIAV. My research interests are related with Biotechnology, Molecular Biology, Genetics and Genomics of Woody Species, including Castanea sativa Mill, Quercus suber L, Pinus pinea L and Pinus pinaster Ait. The work developed in recent years has focused on the use of molecular markers to assess the genetic structure of populations of chestnut, maritime and stone pines and the use of genomic tools for understanding the genetics underlying various aspects of the trees’ biology that condition, namely, the yield and quality of cork in cork oak and disease resistance in chestnut and maritime pine, namely chestnut root rot disease caused by Phytophthora cinnamomi and pine wilt disease caused by the pine wood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus. Currently I am coordinating the research program: "Understanding disease resistance to Phytophthora cinnamomi in Castanea sp", developed in partnership with four Portuguese research institutions: UTAD, BIOFIG-FFCUL, ESAC and ITQB/UNL, a nursery company CERTIFRUTEIRAS, and with the collaboration of researchers of The American Chestnut Foundation, Clemson University and the scientific advisory of Dr C. Dana Nelson, Research Geneticist and Project Leader of Southern Institute of Forest Genetics (SIFG) and Co-Director of Forest Health Research and Education Center - University of Kentucky. I was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Clemson University, University of Kentucky and Southern Institute of Forest Genetics in the academic year of 2015-2016.

orcid.org/0000-0001-9503-6126

September 2016