Hervé Vanderschuren

Hervé Vanderschuren holds a BSc in Bioengineering from Gembloux Agro-BioTech (Belgium) and a MSc in Plant Genetics and Breeding from AgroParisTech (France). He obtained his PhD in Plant Biotechnology from ETH Zurich (Switzerland). He started his academic career as group leader in crop biotechnology at ETH Zurich and he has been appointed Professor of Plant Genetics at University of Liège (Belgium) in 2014 and Professor of Tropical Horticulture at KU Leuven in 2019. Over the last 15 years, his research activities have been focused on the study of crop responses to biotic and abiotic stresses as well as on the implementation of tools to select and develop tropical and temperate crops (i.e. cassava, banana, rice, potato, wheat, chicory) with improved traits. Several accessions of tropical crops with increased disease resistance, improved nutritional quality and prolonged shelf life traits have been developed by his team. He has collaborated with several national and international research institutions in developing and emerging countries through joint research programs. Herve’s team is also actively involved in technology transfer to laboratories in Africa, Asia and South America.