ProMED is pleased to announce the selection of our new Plant Diseases moderator, Dr. Dagmar Hanold.

Dr. Hanold will replace Allan Dodds, who is retiring from ProMED. Dagmar is a Research Fellow and Consultant at the Department of Applied & Molecular Ecology, School of Agriculture and Wine, University of Adelaide (Waite Campus), Australia. She obtained her PhD from the University of Basel, Switzerland and is an expert in plant virology, diagnostics and practices for plant quarantine and plant disease surveys. Her interests include plant diseases of unknown origin, native ecosystems, and plant biosecurity.

Her prior research involved work on diagnosis and control of 2 pathogens of coconut palm: cadang-cadang viroid in the Philippines, and foliar decay virus in Vanuatu, identification and characterization of viroids and viroid-like sequences from palms, including oil palm "orange spotting" disease, the incursions of plant pathogens in Australia, and development of diagnostic methods of viroids and plant viruses. She is a member of the Australasian Plant Pathology Society.

Plant diseases that affect agricultural crops are an important focus of ProMED reports, since these diseases represent very real threats to human health.

We are very pleased to welcome Dagmar Hanold to the ProMED team.