Hongyan achieved a master degree in botany in 2022. Afterwards, she started her PhD project at PSB in October, in the Functional Phosphoproteomics group, where she is guided by Ive De Smet. Currently, she focused on the roles of ABA in high temperature adaptation in Arabidopsis. At this stage, she has mainly explored the cooperative function of kinase, phosphatase and transcription factors.

Elena obtained her PhD in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Pilar Cubas at the National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC) in Madrid, Spain. Her research focused on strigolactone signalling in Arabidopsis, specifically studying the degradation of the strigolactone receptor AtD14 and its role in plant development. After completing her PhD, she joined Prof. Inge De Clercq’s lab, which focuses on Inter-organelle Stress Signalling, as a postdoctoral scientist. Currently, Elena holds a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, aiming to unravel the interactions between chloroplasts, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and mitochondria, with the goal of identifying the complex molecular mechanisms involved in inter-organelle communication.