Rebecca Campbell has been involved in a number of B3 projects, including the first mapping of the myrtle rust incursion, and developing a risk dashboard for the Port of Tauranga.  She was recently awarded a Science Whitinga Fellowship from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The Fellowships aim to support excellent New Zealand early career researchers impacted by COVID-19. Thirty Fellows, such as Rebecca, will receive a share of around $10 million over two years. Rebecca’s work will focus on ‘high-resolution epidemiological models for plant disease prediction and risk management in Aotearoa New Zealand’. Read more about Rebecca and other MBIE Fellows.

Jesse Rubenstein, a B3 /Seed Industry Research Centre Inc (SIRC)-funded PhD student at Lincoln University was awarded a scholarship and a travel grant to further his research on the risks of weed seed contamination within New Zealand’s seed-for-sowing industry. He was awarded the New Zealand Plant Protection Society’s Dan Watkins Scholarship in Weed Science. Jesse also got a travel grant from the Council for Australasian Weed Societies. Read more about Jesse’s research.

Sandy (Andrew) Liebhold is a long-time collaborator and has been influential in a number of B3 projects. He is from the US Forest Service, based at Mortgantown WV. Sandy has been made a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) for his internationally-recognised work on the population ecology of forest insects, and in particular his work on the ecology of insect invasions. Read more about Sandy’s distinguished career.