International Steering Committee

Eva Oburger is a group leader at the Institute of Soil Research, BOKU University in Vienna, Austria. Her research focuses on deepening our understanding of plant-soil-microbe interactions and the role of root and rhizosphere traits in enhancing soil health and crop production. She has a particular interest in root exudation, recognizing it as a key driver of many rhizosphere processes. In addition, she is strongly committed to advancing experimental methodologies and integrating approaches from multiple scientific disciplines.

Philippe Hinsinger has been working for 40 years on rhizosphere biogeochemistry and plant nutrition. After his PhD at UCLouvain and in France on the fate of potassium and weathering of silicates in the rhizosphere and a postdoc at UWA (Australia) on the root-induced dissolution of phosphate rocks, a large part of his career as INRAE scientist in Montpellier has been dedicated to understanding the processes determining the fate of these two nutrients in the rhizosphere. He hosted the RHIZOSPHERE 2 Conference in 2007 (Montpellier). Since then, his research has focused on understanding how plants share belowground resources in diversified agroecosystems such as intercropping and agroforestry systems. He has been Head of the AgroEcoSystem Division of INRAE (2018-2022). His current interest is on the rhizosphere of deep roots in nutrient-poor soils.

Doris Vetterlein is working on diverse aspects of rhizosphere research with a focus on integrating findings from soil physics, microbiology and chemistry. In doing so here interest in recent years was on identifying spatial and temporal patterns in the rhizosphere and linking them to system properties.

Bobbi Helgason is an Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her research focuses on understanding plant-microbe-soil interactions in agroecosystems to enhance microbial contributions to soil health and plant productivity. She is keenly interested in how root-derived carbon influences soil carbon persistence and microbial assembly in the rhizosphere. She was the Co-Chair of the Rhizosphere 5 Conference in Saskatoon in 2019.

Ulrike Mathesius is currently Professor and Head of the Division of Plant Sciences in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University in Canberra. She received her Dipl. Biol. (BSc Hons) at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany followed by a PhD at the ANU between 1996-1999, which focused on the symbiosis between rhizobia and legumes. She then held three fellowships from the Australian Research Council with a focus on the developmental regulation of nodulation, parasitic gall development and lateral root formation in legumes. Her current interests are in trying to improve nitrogen fixation in legumes, with a focus on Medicago and chickpea, and in gaining an understanding of the features that define successful hosts for nitrogen-fixing symbionts.