2022 PCA Travel Award Recipients

Maketalena Aleamotu’a
I am Maketalena Aleamotu’a from the Kingdom of Tonga, a small Polynesian nation in the South Pacific. I undertook my undergraduate degree and MSc at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, with my Master’s research focused on identifying single-stranded DNA viruses from Tongan bat guano. Having always had an interest in how plants work at the molecular level, I changed fields to plant biology for my PhD. My recently submitted thesis (University of Newcastle, Australia) investigated the cellular and molecular biology of phi thickening development in Brassica roots, and identified novel genetic loci linked to jasmonic acid-induced phi thickening development

Iman Yangaza
Iman is an Assistant lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Dar es Salaam. He holds MSc in Climate Change and Sustainable Development and a BSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Dar es Salaam. Iman is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Botany at the University of Dar es Salaam. His research is on assessing Avocado's (Persea americana) genetic diversity and productivity in Tanzania. He has attended training, including plant tissue culture in India (2017) and plant molecular biology in Kenya (2021). His interest is in plant biology, climate change, and scientific data mining.

Deep learning and 3D isosurface rending reveals the spatial relationship of cell mitochondria (blue), Golgi and Golgi vesicles (green) and cell wall with plasmodesmata voids (magenta) in barley root using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy. Photo credt: K. Czymmek

Reconstruction of an Arabidopsis first leaf from a six-day old seedling. Photo credit: F. Bossi

ER marker (green) and anthocyanin (magenta) in Arabidopsis epidermal cells. Photo credit: Alexandra Chanoca (Otegui Lab)