FABI would like to congratulate Bianca Reeksting on passing her PhD exam this week! She presented a prestige seminar before facing the examination panel. The research for her PhD project, Elucidating the early response of Persea americana to Phytophthora cinnamomi and flooding, was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Noelani van den Berg and Dr Nicky Taylor as co-supervisor.
The external examiner for her defense was Prof Jeffrey Rollins from the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Florida in the USA. He was assisted by Prof Retha Slabbert from the Tshwane University of Technology and Dr Juan Vorster as the internal examiner.
Noelani is particularly proud of Bianca’s achievement, as this is the first PhD student who has completed her PhD since the inception of the Fruit Tree Biotechnology Programme in FABI. For Bianca this has been a momentous year, since she also gave birth to a baby daughter shortly after handing in her PhD for examination.