Keynote by Prof. Dr. Sara Diana Leonhardt
Plant-Insect-Interactions, Technical University of Munich, GermanySara Leonhardt is a professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and chair of the plant-insect interactions group. She studied biology at the University of Würzburg (Germany) and at the Duke University (NC, USA). In 2010, she obtained her doctorate from the department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology at Würzburg University. Afterwards, she worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany) and as associate lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia), before becoming a research group leader at the University of Würzburg in 2013 and a professor at TUM in 2019. Her research addresses the ecology and chemistry of plant-insect interactions in both temperate and tropical regions, with particular focus on bees. Projects investigate bee-plant interactions as well as bee health and performance in different habitats and along biodiversity gradients. Research in her group combines ecological methods (field studies, biostatistics) with classic behavioral and physiological studies (e.g. behavioral conditioning) and modern analytical chemistry (GCMS, HPLC).