Laura Selbmann, MSc in Biological Sciences, PhD in Biological Evolution and Biochemistry, Associate Professor at the University of Tuscia, Viterbo. Regular guest at the Westerdijk Institute, The Netherlands from 2004 to 2010. Member of the Life Science Group of the Scientific Committee for Research in Antarctica (SCAR) since 2021. Member of MIRRI-Italia (Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure) since 2019. Since 2009 Scientific Director of the Italian National Museum of Antarctica (MNA), Mycological Section, Genoa, Italy. Her main field of study concerns microorganisms from extreme environments and in particular fungi, coordinator of many national and international projects (PNRA, PRIN, ASI, JGI, EMSL). He has participated in 4 Italian Antarctic expeditions (2010-11, 2015-16, 2018-19 and 2021-22), both at the "Mario Zucchelli" Station and the US "McMurdo" Station. He has dedicated his professional life to the study of Antarctic microbial cryptoendolithic communities to investigate their evolution and adaptation during extremes and explore them as early warning systems to monitor the effect of climate change. To date he has described more than 20 new fungal genera and more than 50 new fungal species, most of which from Antarctica. He has published > 140 articles and 4 book chapters. H index 41 Scopus; >8k citations.
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