The Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology (FESPB) organises every two years a large international Plant Biology Europe (PBE) congress, located in a different European country. This year, the conference is held in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 18th-21st 2018. PBE is jointly organized by FESBP and EPSO, as a result of a merger between the previous individual EPSO and FESPB conferences.
Two young scientists nominated by each of the constituent societies of the FESPB or FESPB senior members are awarded. Alberta Pinnola and Josè M Torres Ruiz won this year’s Young Plant Scientist award.
Physiologia Plantarum is proudly giving a travel grant to Josè M Torres Ruiz.
In the following lines, José describes his scientific interest and scientific path:
“With early interests in climate change and plant physiology, I began to work as an undergraduate studying the effects of drought stress on plant water relations. This awakened my interests in plant water use and the consequences of drought for plant function and led to a Ph.D. at IRNAS-CSIC (Spain) where I focused on the ecophysiological responses of trees to reduced soil water availabilities, being particularly interested in plant hydraulics and xylem anatomy. After my PhD, I did two postdocs: one for one year at the University of Bologna (Italy) and a second one for four years at Biogeco-INRA (France). During these postdoctoral periods I was mainly (but not only!) focused on the effect of water stress on tree performance as well as on the quantification of the variability in drought-related traits both among and within crop and forest species. In January 2018, I joined the PIAF-INRA research Unit in Clermont-Ferrand, France, as Research Scientist where I work on identifying the physiological mechanisms of tree survival to drought, being particularly interested in the role of hydraulic dysfunctions in the survival process.
During my PhD and after its completing, I have carried out different short-term research stays at the Geisenheim research center (Germany), the Univ. of Utah (USA) and Univ. of Tasmania (Australia) that have allowed me to establish my own and multidisciplinary network of collaborators. About the future? Who knows, after having been in so many different places it is difficult to know where I will end up. What I am sure of is that now, with my new position in France, it is time to fully enjoy doing what I really like the most: having fun doing research!”.
If you want to know more, you can follow José on Twitter @torresruizjm
