Who are we?

The Plant Health Student Network (PHSN) is a global community run for students, by students. The PHSN was co-founded in 2022 by the Plant Biosecurity Research Initiative (PBRI) 2022 Ritman Scholars (Salome Wilson, Bianca Rodrigues Jardim, Fable Eenjes, and Rebecca Degnan) as well as the PBRI program director, Jo Luck. The network was founded in response to the clear need for a community in the plant health, plant pathology, and plant biosecurity space, that could facilitate opportunity sharing and skill development.

The current coordinators of the network are the PBRI 2024 Ritman Scholars (Alyssa Martino, Michael Edwards, Rabia Ali and Zali Mahony). Initially, the network was planned to be largely an AU/NZ initiative, but since receiving over 200 expressions of interest at launch from young plant health researchers from around the world, we have happily embraced our global community.

What do we do?

We run regular online forums where guest speakers and specialists in the field share their personal and professional experiences moving through their careers.

We facilitate training on things like communication and presenting, and we share resources such as job opportunities, scholarships, PhD projects, and conferences.

We organise in-person events such as meet-ups at conferences and networking events with industry and field leaders.

Who can join?

If you are a current or prospective student (of any type), early-career researcher, or even a supervisor/group leader working in the plant health space (this can be plant pathology, entomology, plant biosecurity, or even plant breeding), then this network is for you!