News
Two Wageningen researchers appointed as personal professors
Prof.dr. Yuling Bai and Prof.dr. Art Dewulf have been appointed personal professors at Wageningen University & Research. The starting date of their professorship is 1 July. A researcher can be appointed as a personal professor on the basis of excellent performance in education and research.
Prof. Art Dewulf
Dr. Art Dewulf has been appointed as a personal professor at the Public Administration and Policy group headed by Prof. Katrien Termeer.
Art Dewulf (Poperinge, Belgium, 1975), studied Psychology and Social and Cultural Anthropology at the K.U.Leuven from 1993 and received his doctorate in 2006 on a subject in organisational psychology. Art Dewulf has been an assistant professor since 2007, and from 2012 as an associate professor at Wageningen University & Research. In his research he focuses on 'sensemaking and decision-making in policy processes'.
The central question is how people make sense of complex policy issues, and how that is intertwined with the ways in which decisions are made about these issues. With his research, he contributes to the development of collaborative and adaptive policy processes, which become relevant when sensemaking and decision-making are challenged by uncertainty and ambiguity. His research focuses primarily on issues of water management and adaptation to climate change, both in Europe and in the global South.
Prof. Yuling Bai
Prof. dr. Bai has been appointed personal professor at the Plant Breeding Group led by Prof. Richard Visser. There she was employed as an associate professor and research group leader.
Yuling Bai (Henan, China, 1964) studied at Henan Agricultural University in China from 1985 to 1988 for her master degree and specialized in genetics and plant breeding. In 1999 she graduated with distinction in Biotechnology at Wageningen University. During her doctoral research in Molecular plant breeding in Wageningen she was selected by the Technology Foundation STW (now NWO, TTW-Applied and Technical Sciences) in the top 10 of PhD students in 2004.
From the turn of the century, she focused her research on ways to increase the resistance of solanaceous crops (the nightshades family that include tomato, pepper and potato) to pathogens such as powdery mildew.
In her current research she focuses on developing plant breeding strategies and instruments for sustainable resistance in vegetable crops, which can be potentially applied to other plant species. Yuling Bai studies the genetic and molecular mechanisms of disease resistance. Her focus is to link fundamental research in the laboratory to applications in the breeding practice by working together with national and international seed companies.