Sjoerd Woudenberg: Plant Physiology First Author

Sjoerd Woudenberg, first author of “Deep Origin and Gradual Evolution of Transporting Tissues: Perspectives from across the Land Plants”

Current Position: PhD student, Laboratory of Biochemistry, Wageningen University and Research

Education: MSc in Biology (Wageningen University)

Non-scientific Interests: Nature, especially plants and birds, gardening and sports

Brief bio: Currently, I am working on my PhD-project on establishing and utilizing the fern Ceratopteris richardii as a developmental and evolutionary model. I had the feeling that some plant clades are underrepresented in most studies, which focus mainly on angiosperms and nowadays also on bryophytes. By using a fern species, I hope I can bridge this gap in our understanding of land plant evolution. Hopefully this will help identify conserved but also novel mechanisms of development.