Biology Seminar Series: Britt Koskella "Leveraging the phyllosphere microbiome for plant health"

Britt Koskella is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work explores the importance of the bacteria and viruses making up the microbiome in shaping plant health, ecology, and evolution. She received her BA from the University of Virginia in 2001 and her PhD from Indiana University in 2018, and subsequently held postdoctoral and independent research fellowships in both the US (funded by the NSF) and UK (funded by NERC) at Oxford University and the University of Exeter. Her work combines laboratory experimental evolution with studies of natural diversity to determine how bacteriophage viruses shape bacterial evolution, microbiome diversity, and disease. She works on the phyllosphere (above ground tissues) of both long-lived trees and short-lived, agriculturally relevant systems to better predict microbiome complexity and stability and to understand the role that microbiomes play in plant health and agricultural sustainability.