In 2024, Stéphanie and her team of three co-researchers were awarded the prestigious European Research Council Synergy grant of 10 million euro, to map the auxin signature in plant cells, starting in 2025. Read more about the project plans here!

In 2024, Stéphanie’s promotion to professor was celebrated with an official inauguration by the president of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Maria Knutson Wedel.

In 2024, Vinod Kumar was awarded the prestigious Marie Curie grant to work for two years as a postdoc in our group. The project proposal, candidate and host lab were together ranked with an impressive score of 99.2 and we celebrated with a cake! Congratulations Vinod!

In 2023, Stéphanie and her team of four co-researchers were awarded a large research grant of over 32 million Swedish crowns by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, with the aim to investigate plant cell identity. Read more about the project plans here!

In 2023, Stéphanie was honoured with an invitation from SLU’s vice-chancellor to give an inspirational talk at the doctoral award ceremony in Uppsala. Professor Malcolm Bennett of Nottingham University received an honorary doctorate at the same ceremony.

In 2022, Sara was awarded the the Agrisera Prize for her significant scientific contributions and her commitment to create a positive and collaborative work environment at UPSC.

In 2019, Stéphanie was awarded the The Sven and Ebba-Christina Hagberg Foundation award for her outstanding research. She received the award from Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien (“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences”) at a ceremony in Stockholm.

In 2019, we hosted Professor Natasha Raikhel when she received an honorary doctorate at our university, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), at doctoral award ceremony in Uppsala.

In 2018, Sara won the best cell biology image competition at the Umeå Cell Biology Symposium.

In 2016, Siamsa was awarded the Agrisera Prize for her scientific excellence and her outstanding contribution to improving the UPSC work environment.

In 2024, Stéphanie gave a popular science interview and lecture arranged by SLU as part of the celebration of her promotion to professor. Click here to watch – it starts at about 14.30 into the recording.

We have participated in several “Fascination of Plants Day” events, during which the public can take part in fun and educational live demonstrations and experiments based on plant science. We are proud to instill curiosity for plant science in our visitors!

In 2017, Stéphanie gave an interview for a popular science article about plant research in the August 21^st 2017 edition, pages 6-7, of Folkbladet (“The People’s Newspaper”).

In 2017, Siamsa gave a popular science talk entitled Using Chemicals to Dissect Plants, which was filmed by Utbildningsradio and shown on the TV channel Kunskapskanalen (“The Knowledge Channel”).

Our research group is highly engaged in exchanges with the international research community. This includes establishing mutually beneficial collaborations, sharing our results with our peers and both giving and receiving feedback with the aim to improve research quality. We therefore send all group members to present their work at approximately one international conference per year.

Together with our colleagues, we also enjoyed organizing the 8th International Symposium on Root Development in Umeå in 2017, the Umeå Cell Biology Symposium in 2018, the first Hormone, Cell Wall and Morphogenesis Workshop in Umeå in 2022 and the Auxentric meeting in Umeå in 2024.

We have also had the honour of being invited to give a talk or to be keynote speaker at the following conferences and meetings:

Stéphanie – invited speaker and chair at the International Congress on Plant Molecular Biology, Cairns, Australia, 2024.
Stéphanie – invited speaker and chair at the 24th International Conference on Plant Growth Substances, Gyeongju, Korea, 2023.
Stéphanie (talk given by Sara) – invited speaker at the Auxins and Cytokinins in Plant Development Symposium, Prague, Czech Republic, 2023.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the online Saclay Plant Sciences seminars, Université Paris-Saclay, France, 2022 – watch the seminar here!
Stéphanie – invited speaker and chair at the IUBMB-FEBS-PABMB Symposium, Lisbon, Portugal, 2022.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the Auxin Meeting, Cavtat, Croatia, 2020, delayed to 2022.
Sara – invited speaker at Chemistry and Biology of Phytohormones and Related Substances, Luhačovice, Czech Republic, 2019.
Stéphanie (talk given by Siamsa) – invited speaker at Small Molecules In Plant Research: Chemistry and Biology Come Together, Valencia, Spain, 2019.
Stéphanie – invited plenary speaker at the International Plant Growth Substances Association (IPGSA) Conference, Paris, France, 2019.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at Auxin 2016, Haitang Bay, Sanya, China, 2016.
Stéphanie (talk given by Thomas) – invited speaker at Biostimulants, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2016.
Thomas and Stéphanie – invited speakers at the International Plant Growth Substances Association (IPGSA) Conference, Toronto, Canada, 2016.
Stéphanie – invited keynote speaker at the Plant Development and Signaling Meeting, Wageningen, Netherlands, 2016.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the CAPCEB Award Symposium, Riverside, California, USA, 2015.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the workshop Cell Wall and Signaling, International Conference on Arabidopsis Research, Paris, France, 2015.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the Second International Congress on Biostimulants in Agriculture, Florence, Italy, 2015.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at Trends in Natural Products Research, Olomouc, Czech Republic, 2014.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the Plant Network Meeting, Uppsala, Sweden, 2013.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the WoW meeting, Umeå, Sweden, 2013.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the USPA meeting, Nottingham, England, 2013.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Meeting, Salzburg, Austria, 2012
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the 5th Conference of Polish Society of Plant Biology, Wroclaw, Poland, 2011.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the Modelling Cell Elongation Workshop, Nottingham, UK, 2011.
Stéphanie – invited speaker at the Cell Biology session of the 15th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research, Berlin, Germany, 2004.