Brankica Pešić

Biography

Brankica Pešić, PhD, is a principal research fellow at the Institute of Pesticides and Environmental Protection, Belgrade; received BSc in Plant and Food Protection, MSc in Plant Pathology and PhD in Biotechnological Sciences at University of Belgrade - Faculty of Agriculture. She has a background in phytopathology with more than 20 years of experience, dealing with identification, biological and molecular characterization of plant pathogens from several fungal or fungi-like genera including Botrytis, Rhizoctonia, Pythium, Sclerotinia, Verticillium, Monilinia, Didymella, and Fusarium, of different crops, as well as their control by means of conventional fungicides, biofungicides, and botanicals. She has also a long-lasting experience in the search for new bioactive strains of antagonistic microorganisms and their formulation into ready-to use products against plant pathogens. She was a coordinator of two internarial bilateral projects and participated in several national projects and COST actions. She published over 230 scientific publications, two book chapters, two novel technological procedures and two textbooks for the students of agriculture. She has over 160 citations with h-index 8 (Scopus, retrieved October 10, 2022). She has expertise in detection, identification and characterization of many plant pathogens including quarantine fungi (Monilinia fructicola, Stenocarpella macrospora, S. maydis) approved by Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of Republic of Serbia. She has organized/participated in many national and international conferences and attended several training schools abroad (SCAU, China; Iowa State University, USA). She is a member of the Plant Protection Society of Serbia, International Society for Horticultural Science and American Phytopathological Society.