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Dr Cecile Gueidan

Group Leader

https://people.csiro.au/G/C/Cecile-Gueidan

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Contact details:

GPO BOX 1700
CANBERRA ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA

Biography

Dr. Cécile Gueidan (Australian National Herbarium, CSIRO) has been a research scientist at the Australian National Herbarium in Canberra, Australia since 2014. Cécile has a diploma in Systematics from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France and a Ph.D. in Systematics and Evolution from Duke University in the U.S.A. Her doctoral research (2002-2007) was funded through the Assembling the Tree of Life (AFToL) project and focussed on the systematics of the lichen family Verrucariaceae and the evolution of the fungal subclass Chaetothyriomycetidae. During her Ph.D., she successfully reconstructed the first multigene phylogeny for the Verrucariaceae and, together with other experts in the taxonomy of this family, revised generic concepts within this group of lichens. Cécile also employed ancestral character reconstruction to infer the origin of lichenisation within the Ascomycetes, and more specifically the subclass Chaetothyriomycetidae. As a postdoctoral researcher (2008-2010), Cécile undertook research at the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands on the ecology and evolution of clinical fungi. She was involved in several large molecular phylogenetic projects focussing on the genera Fusarium and Acremonium and continued her work on the evolution of black yeast-like fungi. Following her post-doc, Cécile was employed as a research scientist by the Natural History Museum in London, UK (2010-2014), where she furthered her research into the molecular systematics of lichens, particularly focussing on the Verrucariaceae. During this time, Cécile also participated in collecting trips to various destinations, including Vietnam. These collections contributed to productive collaborations which resulted in, among others, the first comprehensive phylogenies for the tropical lichen family Pyrenulaceae. In addition, Cécile used molecular phylogenetics to infer the origins of the two main groups of rock-inhabiting fungi, in one of the few early studies that used fossil calibrations to estimate divergence times in ascomycete fungi. From London, Cécile then moved to Australia to be a researcher at the Australian National Herbarium (2014-present) where her work focusses on the molecular taxonomy of Australian lichens and the application of new Next Generation Sequencing-based approaches to unlock the genetic potential of cryptogam collections. She also leads a research project on molecular interactions within the lichen symbiosis.

Achievements and Awards

  • 2012-2012

    Elias Magnus Fries medal
    International Mycological Association

  • 2006-2006

    Graduate Fellowship Award
    Mycological Society of America

Current Roles

  • Senior researcher at the Australian National Herbarium
    Research in taxonomy, systematics & evolution of licensed fungi

  • Acting leader of the "Botanical Collections" group
    Research management

Academic Qualifications

  • 2007

    Doctor of Philosophy
    Duke University (Durham, USA)

  • 1999

    DEA
    Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris, France)

  • 1998

    Maitrise
    Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg, France)

Professional Experiences

  • 2019-2023

    Senior researcher and leader of the "Species Interactions & Community Ecology" team
    CSIRO, NCMI, Australian National Herbarium

  • 2016-2019

    Senior researcher and leader of the "Cryptogam Evolution & Systematics" team
    CSIRO, NCMI, Australian National Herbarium

  • 2014-2016

    Senior researcher
    CSIRO, NCMI, Australian National Herbarium

  • 2010-2014

    Researcher
    Natural History Museum (London, UK)

  • 2008-2010

    Postdoctoral researcher
    CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre (Utrecht, Netherlands)

Other highlights

  • 2021-2021

    Keynote speaker at the 9th meeting of the International Association of Lichenology, Bonito, Brazil - "Using next generation approaches to build on the importance of lichen collections"

  • 2012-2012

    Keynote speaker at the biennial conference of the German Mycological Society, Drübeck, Germany - "Lichenization: an alternative survival strategy for rock-inhabiting fungi?"

  • 2011-2011

    Keynote speaker at the 18th Symposium on Cryptogamic Botany, Barcelona, Spain - "Tracking back the origins of the lichen symbiosis"

Grants

  • 2019-2023

    Grant from the Australian Biological Resources Study (participant) - "The phylogeny and taxonomy of Australian members of the liverwort genus Riccia"

  • 2019-2022

    Grant from the Environomics FSP (participant) - "Exploring the biodiscovery potential of natural history collections"

  • 2019-2020

    Grant from the Bush Blitz Taxonomy Research initiative (lead) - "Molecular identification and discovery of microlichens from the 2018 ACT Bush Blitz"

  • 2019-2022

    Grant from the Environomics FSP (participant) - "Accelerating discovery: a collection genomics pipeline for high-throughput target enrichment"

  • 2017-2020

    Grant from the Environomics FSP (participant) - "High-throughput Collection Genomics & Framework Data Sets"

  • 2017-2021

    Grant from the CSIRO Synthetic Biology FSP (lead) - "In vitro resynthesis of the lichen symbiosis as a useful system for synthetic biology"

  • 2015-2015

    Grant from the Friends of the Australian National Botanic Gardens (lead) - "Digitization of the CANB lichen types"

We have publications by Dr Cecile Gueidan

    Published data & software

    We have published items by Dr Cecile Gueidan