Recognizing The Plant Cell author Carmen Martín-Pizarro

Carmen Martín-Pizarro, first author of The NAC transcription factor FaRIF controls fruit ripening in strawberry

Current position: Postdoc at the Institute for Mediterranean and Subtropical Horticulture (IHSM – UMA – CSIC)

Education: BSc in Biological Science and PhD in Molecular Biology (University of Málaga – UMA)

Non-scientific Interests: I love travelling and going to the beach with my family, making crafts with my two kids (Álvaro and Violeta), and watching classic movies. I also enjoy music a lot, in particular going to live concerts with my husband.

Brief Bio: I started my scientific career at the UMA in 2003, when I worked on different projects related to strawberry hormonal and molecular signaling with Profs. Fernando Pliego, José A. Mercado, Miguel A. Botella and Victoriano Valpuesta. In 2009, I started a 3 years stay at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, in the group of Prof. Detlef Weigel, where I participated in a project aiming at studying hybrid incompatibility in Arabidopsis. After all these years of research experience, I came back to the UMA and started in 2015 my PhD in the group of Prof. David Posé, where I resumed working with my beloved strawberries, in particular identifying and characterizing transcription factors involved in the regulation of fruit ripening. Currently, I am doing a postdoc at Prof. Javier Pozueta’s group at the IHSM, studying the molecular mechanisms underlying the response to plants to of fungi volatiles.