Chrysa Pantazopoulou successfully defended her thesis a couple of weeks ago. It deals with shade avoidance control, including last year’s PNAS paper, and ideas about implementing our knowledge in weed control. Congratulations to Chrysa for a wonderful public defense, and fabulous diner party. One thing, among many, that I love about being in academia is working with people from many different backgrounds and nationalities. Chrysa gave us an amazing Greek dinner experience.
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/28/7450

Chiakai Kang is the next PhD student in our group to defend her PhD thesis in public, 7 May. Hers is on light quality control of root development and features last month’s Plant Cell paper.
http://www.plantcell.org/content/early/2018/01/09/tpc.17.00771

Finally, I’m proud to have been awarded an NWO-Vici grant, which allows me to hire five new people in my group and do exciting new research in the domain of shade avoidance control.  See the press releases for more information on this:
https://www.uu.nl/en/news/vici-grants-for-ronald-pierik-enrico-mastrobattista-and-maarten-kole
https://www.nwo.nl/en/news-and-events/news/2018/02/35-scientists-to-receive-nwo-vici-grants-worth-1.5-million-euros.html