Professor

Mike Wingfield

FAAS FRSSAf
Born
Michael John Wingfield

(1954-04-21) 21 April 1954
Durban, Natal, South Africa
Education
SpouseBrenda Wingfield
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisEcology of the pine wood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus in the north-central United States (1983)

Professor Michael John Wingfield (born 21 April 1954) is a South African academic and scientist who studies plant pathology and biological control. He was the founding director of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria. Wingfield has authored or co-authored over 1,000 scientific publications and is considered a leading expert in the field of forest health and invasive species. He has received numerous awards and honours throughout his career, including Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award and John Herschel Medal, the highest accolade from the Royal Society of South Africa. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and the African Academy of Sciences. Wingfield has had several fungi named after him.

Life and career

Early life and education

Michael John Wingfield[1] was born on 21 April 1954 in Durban, South Africa.[2][3] He earned a Bachelor of Science in Botany from the University of Natal in 1976,[4] before completing a Master of Science in plant pathology while working for the Plant Protection Research Institute of Stellenbosch University, in 1979, graduating with distinction.[1][4] He earned his doctorate in entomology and plant pathology from the University of Minnesota in 1983.[5][4] Wingfield also graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2008.[4]

Career

While working at the Plant Protection Research Institute of Stellenbosch University, Wingfield started the country's first forest pathology research programme in 1978. After earning his PhD, he continued the program's expansion. In 1990, Wingfield was promoted to professor in the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of the Free State after relocating there in 1988. Wingfield was named the Mondi Paper Co. Ltd. Chair in forest pathology in 1994.[4]

Wingfield was the founding director of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), University of Pretoria, in until 2017.[6] FABI was founded in 1998 due to Wingfield's work in 1990 to create the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme.[7] He continued as a professor at FABI and an advisor to the Executive Board of the University of Pretoria.[6]

Wingfield was the director of the Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology, National Research Foundation, and the President of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) between 2014 and 2019.[6][7] His collaboration with Chinese academics led to the formation of the CERC/FABI Tree Protection Programme (CFTPP),[8] a joint venture between the FABI and the China Eucalyptus Research Centre (CERC), in 2015.[9] CFTPP was renamed to RIFT-FABI Tree Protection Programme (RFTPP).[10]

Personal life

Wingfield is married to Brenda D. Fairbairn,[11] one of his main collaborators,[4] a professor of genetics and previous Deputy Dean at the University of Pretoria, and an Associate Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences since 2016.[12]

Research

Wingfield's research focuses on forest protection[13] and health,[14] mycology,[15][16] entomology,[17] and biotechnology.[18][19] He has worked on several projects and partnerships studying diseases that affect pine, eucalyptus, and other significant plants.[18][19][20] He, along with his students and collaborators worked on various pathogens, including Ceratocystis, Ophiostoma, Mycosphaerella, Fusarium, Cryphonectria, and Armillaria species.[19][21][22] His team has used traditional and molecular approaches to classify and distinguish infections, define a novel, sometimes cryptic species, and determine evolutionary connections.[23][24]

Wingfield is an expert on plants' health with an h-index of 120 and more than 69,000 citations as of August 2023,[25] over 700 research papers and seven books.[26] He has been featured in the Web of Science list of the world's most-cited researchers since 2018.[27][28][29]

Awards and honours

Wingfield is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.[6] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 1998,[30] and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences in 2016.[6]

For his contributions and collaboration in the field of forestry, Wingfield was awarded the Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Medal by the Southern African Society for Plant Pathology Society (SASPPS) in 1999,[31] the Johanna Westerdijk Award from the CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Netherlands in 2012,[32][33] the Kwame Nkrumah Award from the African Union in 2013,[34][35] the University of Minnesota's Distinguished Leadership Award in 2016,[36] John Herschel Medal, the highest accolade from the Royal Society of South Africa, in 2017,[37] the Chinese Government's Friendship Award in 2017,[8] National Science and Technology Forum-South32's Special Annual Theme Award: Plant Health on 30 July 2020,[38] and Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award in 2022.[11][39]

Wingfield received an honorary doctorate of science (DSc) from the University of British Columbia in 2012,[32] and the North Carolina State University in 2013.[11]

Wingfield has several fungi named in his honour: Sterigmatomyces wingfieldii Van der Walt, Y.Yamada & N.P.Ferreira (1987);[40] Leptographium wingfieldii M.Morelet (1988);[41] Asterina wingfieldii Hosag., N.P.Balakr. & Goos (1996);[42] Catenulostroma wingfieldii Crous (2008);[43] and Gondwanamyces wingfieldii Roets & Dreyer (2012).[44] Racheliella wingfieldiana Crous & U.Braun (2018) was named after his first grandchild, Rachel.[45]

References

  1. 1 2 Wingfield, M. J. (Michael John) (1979). Some forest tree diseases in South Africa (Thesis). Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  2. ↑ "Wingfield, Michael John (1954-....)". Id Ref. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  3. ↑ "michael j. wingfield | fabi" (PDF). FABI. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Michael J. Wingfield". Michael J. Wingfield. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  5. ↑ "Google Scholar". scholar.google.com. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Wingfield Mike | The AAS". www.aasciences.africa. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  7. 1 2 "Michael Wingfield | World Forestry Congress | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations". www.fao.org. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  8. 1 2 "Prof Mike Wingfield receives Chinese Government Friendship Award | the University of Pretoria". www.up.ac.za. 13 October 2017. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  9. ↑ "Memorandum of Understanding established between FABI and CERC". FABI. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  10. ↑ "RIFT-FABI Tree Protection Programme". FABI. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  11. 1 2 3 Madiba, Dimpho. "University of Pretoria's Prof Michael Wingfield wins prestigious Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award". www.engineeringnews.co.za. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  12. ↑ "Wingfield Brenda D. | The AAS". www.aasciences.africa. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  13. ↑ Schoch, Conrad L.; et al. (1 April 2009). "The Ascomycota Tree of Life: A Phylum-wide Phylogeny Clarifies the Origin and Evolution of Fundamental Reproductive and Ecological Traits". Systematic Biology. 58 (2): 224–239. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syp020. PMID 20525580.
  14. ↑ Keane, P. J.; Kile, G. A.; Podger, F. D.; Brown, B. N. (25 October 2000). Diseases and Pathogens of Eucalypts. Csiro Publishing. ISBN 978-0-643-09884-8. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  15. ↑ Schoch, Conrad L.; Seifert, Keith A.; Huhndorf, Sabine; Robert, Vincent; Spouge, John L.; Levesque, C. André; Chen, Wen (17 April 2012). "Nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region as a universal DNA barcode marker for Fungi". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (16): 6241–6246. doi:10.1073/pnas.1117018109. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3341068. PMID 22454494.
  16. ↑ Stielow, J.B.; Lévesque, C.A.; Seifert, K.A.; Meyer, W.; Irinyi, L.; Smits, D.; Renfurm, R.; Verkley, G.J.M.; Groenewald, M.; Chaduli, D.; Lomascolo, A.; Welti, S.; Lesage-Meessen, L.; Favel, A.; Al-Hatmi, A.M.S. (23 December 2015). "One fungus, which genes? Development and assessment of universal primers for potential secondary fungal DNA barcodes". Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi. 35 (1): 242–263. doi:10.3767/003158515X689135. PMC 4713107. PMID 26823635. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  17. ↑ Pyšek, Petr; Hulme, Philip E.; Simberloff, Dan; Bacher, Sven; Blackburn, Tim M.; Carlton, James T.; Dawson, Wayne; Essl, Franz; Foxcroft, Llewellyn C.; Genovesi, Piero; Jeschke, Jonathan M.; Kühn, Ingolf; Liebhold, Andrew M.; Mandrak, Nicholas E.; Meyerson, Laura A. (1 December 2020). "Scientists' warning on invasive alien species". Biological Reviews. 95 (6): 1511–1534. doi:10.1111/brv.12627. ISSN 1464-7931. PMC 7687187. PMID 32588508.
  18. 1 2 "The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust | 2021 – Mike Wingfield". Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  19. 1 2 3 "Professor Michael Wingfield – ACGT". acgt.co.za. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  20. ↑ "Baobab disease puzzles scientists". 24 May 2004. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  21. ↑ "Michael John Wingfield". The Conversation. 6 April 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  22. ↑ Richardson, David M. (23 February 2011). Fifty Years of Invasion Ecology: The Legacy of Charles Elton. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-3000-7. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  23. ↑ Pest Risk Assessment of the Importation Into the United States of Unprocessed Eucalyptus Logs and Chips from South America. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory. 2001. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  24. ↑ Wylie, F. R.; Speight, Martin R. (2012). Insect Pests in Tropical Forestry. CABI. ISBN 978-1-84593-636-5. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  25. ↑ "Mike Wingfield". scholar.google.co.za. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  26. ↑ "Michael Wingfield | World Forestry Congress | Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura". FAO. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  27. ↑ "Two UP professors make Web of Science's Highly Cited Researchers list for 2018 | University of Pretoria". www.up.ac.za. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  28. ↑ "Two UP professors named on 2019 Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher list | University of Pretoria". www.up.ac.za. Archived from the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  29. ↑ "Highly Cited Researchers". publons.com. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  30. ↑ "Current Fellows – Royal Society of South Africa". Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  31. ↑ "The Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Medal – Southern African Society for Plant Pathology". saspp.co.za. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  32. 1 2 "Prestigious AU award for Prof Mike Wingfield". www.up.ac.za. Archived from the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  33. ↑ Hawksworth, David L.; Wingfield, Michael J.; Crous, Pedro W. (1 June 2012). "Awards and Personalia". IMA Fungus. 3 (1): A24–A28. doi:10.1007/BF03449329. ISSN 2210-6359.
  34. ↑ "Award Ceremony for the AU Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Awards". au.int. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  35. ↑ "Prestigious African Union Science Award for Prof Mike Wingfield". www.up.ac.za. Archived from the original on 22 October 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  36. ↑ "2016 : Wingfield : Distinguished Leadership Award : Global Programs and Strategy Alliance : University of Minnesota". global.umn.edu. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  37. ↑ "Prof Mike Wingfield to receive the John FW Herschel Medal | University of Pretoria". www.up.ac.za. Archived from the original on 22 October 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  38. ↑ Mokgehle, Salmina (26 November 2020). "NSTF-South32 award for Plant Health: Honouring excellence and celebrating Professor Mike Wingfield". South African Journal of Science. 116 (11/12). doi:10.17159/sajs.2020/9010. ISSN 1996-7489. S2CID 229402481. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  39. ↑ "UP's Prof Michael Wingfield wins Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award". Bizcommunity. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  40. ↑ Van der Walt, J. P.; Yamada, Y.; Ferreira, N. P.; Richards, P. D. (1987). "New basidiomycetous yeasts from southern Africa. II. Sterigmatomyces wingfieldii sp.n". Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. 53 (3): 137–142. doi:10.1007/BF00393841. ISSN 0003-6072. PMID 3662485. S2CID 11462272. Archived from the original on 27 December 2022. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
  41. ↑ Jacobs, Karin; Bergdahl, Dale R.; Wingfield, Michael J.; Halik, Shari; Seifert, Keith A.; Bright, Donald E.; Wingfield, Brenda D. (1 April 2004). "Leptographium wingfieldii introduced into North America and found associated with exotic Tomicus piniperda and native bark beetles". Mycological Research. 108 (4): 411–418. doi:10.1017/S0953756204009748. ISSN 0953-7562. PMID 15209281.
  42. ↑ Hosagoudar, V.B. (21 November 2003). "Asterinaceae of India". Zoos' Print Journal. 18 (12): 1280–1285. doi:10.11609/jott.zpj.18.12.1280-5. ISSN 0973-2535. S2CID 87678469.
  43. ↑ Crous, P.W.; Summerell, B.A.; Mostert, L.; Groenewald, J.Z. (2008). "Host specificity and speciation of Mycosphaerella and Teratosphaeria species associated with leaf spots of Proteaceae". Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi. 20 (1): 59–86. doi:10.3767/003158508x323949. PMC 2865354. PMID 20467487.
  44. ↑ Crous, P.W.; Summerell, B.A.; Shivas, R.G.; Burgess, T.I.; Decock, C.A.; Dreyer, L.L.; Granke, L.L.; Guest, D.I.; Hardy, G.E.ST.J.; Hausbeck, M.K.; Hüberli, D.; Jung, T.; Koukol, O.; Lennox, C.L.; Liew, E.C.Y.; Lombard, L.; McTaggart, A.R.; Pryke, J.S.; Roets, F.; Saude, C.; Shuttleworth, L.A.; Stukely, M.J.C.; Vánky, K.; Webster, B.J.; Windstam, S.T.; Groenewald, J.Z. (2012). "Fungal Planet description sheets: 107–127". Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi. 28 (1): 138–182. doi:10.3767/003158512x652633. PMC 3409410. PMID 23105159.
  45. ↑ Braun, U.; Nakashima, C.; Crous, P.W.; Groenewald, J.Z.; Moreno-Rico, O.; Rooney-Latham, S.; Blomquist, C.L.; Haas, J.; Marmolejo, J. (2018). "Phylogeny and taxonomy of the genus Tubakia s. lat" (PDF). Fungal Systematics and Evolution. 1 (1): 69. doi:10.3114/fuse.2018.01.04. PMC 7259437. PMID 32490362.
  46. ↑ International Plant Names Index.  M.J.Wingf.
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