The 2025 ISOP elections will be held from June 11 to June 24. ISOP members will be voting to elect a new President-Elect, Award Committee Chairperson, Trainee Member, and three members of the Nominating Committee. All candidates are ISOP members in good standing.
Nominating Committee Terms:
The terms for the three elected members of the Nominating Committee will vary: 1, 2, and 3 years. The candidate receiving the most votes will serve for three years, the second highest for two years, and the third highest for one year.
Start of Term:
The terms for all newly elected officers and committee members will begin immediately after the ISOP Business Meeting in Seoul, on June 26 at 1:00 PM (GMT+9).
Voting Instructions:
Members will be asked to vote for:
- One candidate each for President-Elect, Award committee Chairperson, and Trainee member
- Up to three candidates for the Nominating Committee
A brief biographical sketch of each candidate is available below (if submitted).
For details about the responsibilities of each position, please refer to the ISOP Bylaws.
How to Vote:
ISOP members will receive a link to vote via e-mail. Please check your spam or junk folder if you do not see it. If you have not received the email by June 13, please contact the Executive Secretary at panek3@natur.cuni.cz.
President-Elect
Name: Gillian H. Gile
Education: PhD Botany, University of British Columbia, Canada, 2009; BS Botany, Humboldt State University, USA, 2025.
Current Position: Associate Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
Service to ISOP:
- 2024-present: Member at Large
- 2022-2023: Nominating Committee Past Chair
- 2021-2022: Nominating Committee Acting Chair
I regularly attend ISOP meetings and help with judging for student awards.
Professional activities relevant to ISOP:
- Secretary, International Society for Evolutionary Protistology (2023-present)
- North American Councillor, ISEP (2020-present)
- Co-organizer, US Protists Community Meeting (2021)
- Panelist, US NSF and NASA grant programs (2018, 2021, 2024, 2025)
- Reviewer for 30 journals, including the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, Protist, and the European Journal of Protistology (ongoing)
- I have developed and taught three protistology courses at ASU:
- Microbial Eukaryotes Diversity and Evolution CURE (2022-present)
- Microbial Eukaryotes Seminar (graduate level) (2023-2024)
- Parasites and Their Relatives (2016-2021)
Honors and Awards:
- ASU School of Life Sciences Teaching Excellence and Innovation Award (2024)
- Research grants (as lead PI):
- “CAREER: Wood-eating protists: An evolutionary transition enabled by gene transfer?” NSF BIO DEB award #2045329, PI Gillian Gile (2021-2026)
- “Four-‘domain’ microbial metagenome of the termite hindgut” NSF BIO DEB award #1754337, PI Gillian Gile, Co-PIs: Arvind Varsani, Ryan Penton, Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz (2018-2021)
- “Rapid isolation of live microbial species from environmental communities” NSF BIO DEB, EAGER award #1644328, PI: Gillian Gile, Co-PI: Mark Hayes (2016-2019)
Research Interests: My primary research focus since becoming a faculty member has been the termite-protist symbiosis, including protist diversity and systematics, host-symbiont coevolution, comparative transcriptomics, and cell biology. I have also worked on protein targeting to complex plastids in several algal lineages.
Vision for ISOP: The most important things we do as a society is welcome and support early career scientists. By helping to advance careers and keep protistologists in science, this benefits ISOP as much as it benefits individual trainees. We should continue to prioritize this career advancement support while looking for ways to connect with other scientific societies, especially in adjacent disciplines such as cell biology and evolution. This could help attract new members, expand the networks of existing members, and improve science through sharing of ideas and techniques.
NAME: Sonja Rückert
Education: Diploma (MSc equiv.), Biology, Christian-Albrechts University Kiel (2001), Ph.D., Biology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf (2006).
Current Position: Professor, Eukaryotic Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Duisburg-Essen.
ISOP member from: can’t remember, probably 2007
Service to ISOP:
- Program Committee member (since April 2021)
- Interim Program Committee Chair (02/2019 to 04/2021)
- Awards Committee Member (since Feb 2019)
- International Committee on Nomenclature, Taxonomy, and Systematics member (since Nov 2016)
Other Professional Activities:
- Associate Editor for European Journal of Protistology
- Review Editor for Frontiers in Marine Science – Aquatic Microbiology
- ISEP Past President and European Councilor (since 2023)
- ISEP President (2020-2023)
- ISEP President elect (2019-2020)
- ISEP Chair of Travel Award Committee (2017-2018)
- Member of the Eukaryotic Division of the Microbiology Society (2018-2022)
- Secretary of Protistology-UK (2016-2024)
- Member of the Executive Committee of Protistology-UK (2015-2024)
Honors and Awards:
- 2010 ISEP Trainee Travel Award (ISEP XVIII)
- 2009 Walter Colli Prize (XIII ICOP)
- 2002 DAAD PhD fellowship
Research Interests: I am broadly interested in symbiosis, with a focus on aquatic parasites/symbionts, broadening the understanding of the evolution, and effects of parasitism on an individual, population, and ecosystem level.
Areas of research include: Systematics, molecular phylogeny, biodiversity, and evolutionary ecology of parasitic/symbiotic protists, in particular the gregarine apicomplexans; cell culture development of gregarine apicomplexans; protist-host relationships and interactions in different environmental settings.
Research Accomplishments: Until now I have published >50 articles in peer-reviewed journals (H-index: 29) and received >1,5 Mio Euro in grant money.
Vision for ISOP: If I would become elected president for ISOP, I would like to discuss ideas to attract more young researchers, and make protistology and its importance more visible to the general public. Also, to connect researchers better I could envision using the newsletter to introduce the existing working groups and their interests in relation to protists, which could also be collected in a database to make e.g. finding potential collaborators easier.
NAME: Alexey V. Smirnov
Current Position: Associate Professor of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, head of the laboratory of Protistology and Experimental Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Saint Petersburg University, Russia
ISOP member from: 2014
Other Professional Activities:
- PI in many national and international research grants and programs
- Member of selection committee of DAAD (Germany)
- expert of Russian Science Foundation and Federal Agency on Scientific Organizations (Russia)
- Member of the editorial board of three international journals.
- At different periods established, equipped and headed several research laboratories and a core facility center “Culture Collection of Microorganisms” in Saint Petersburg University.
Research Interests: Systematics, biodiversity, and phylogeny of amoeboid protists. Phylogeny, origin and early evolution of Amoebozoa. Organization of the protozoan communities; patterns of the global-scale and local-scale microbial diversity. Genetic structure of morphospecies in agamous groups of protists.
Research Accomplishments: over hundred papers and several book chapters dedicated to various aspects of Amoebozoa studies. Numerous descriptions of naked amoebae species, revisions of amoebae taxa, studies of the spatial and geographic distribution of naked amoebae. Phylogeny of amoebozoan clades. Hypothesis of Tubulinea/Discosea dichotomy and systems of Amoebozoa based on this dichotomy.
Vision for ISOP: The Society is developing rapidly and maintaining this trajectory is a major goal. Among the priorities I see the enhancement of the role of ISOP as a hub and channel of communication between scientists, a wider use of electronic media in the work of the Society, such as webinars, lectures, hybrid meetings or webcasts of conferences, scientific sessions and Society events. Expanding the ISOP presence in social media, including major national social media, and further developing the ISOP website into a universal professional portal and scientific news channel containing quality information. Particular attention to providing better opportunities for the integration of young researchers into the international scientific community and mentoring initiatives, including remote assistance to young researchers who are limited in scientific mobility for whatever reason. I would also suggest paying even more attention to the role of ISOP in popularizing knowledge about single-celled eukaryotes and modern scientific achievements in this field of science.
Award committee Chairperson
NAME: Javier del Campo
Education: B.S., Biology, University of Barcelona (2003); Ph.D., Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Barcelona and Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC) (2011).
Current Position: Group Leader, Biodiversity Program, Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC – Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona (Spain).
Service to ISOP:
- Elected Member of ISOP’s Nominating Committee (2015 – 2016)
- ISOP’s Information Officer (2015 – 2022)
- Elected Chair of ISOP’s Nominating Committee (2019 – 2022)
- Appointed Chair of ISOP’s Awards Committee (2022 – 2025)
- Chair and organizer of three symposia in ISOP-sponsored meetings.
Other Professional Activities:
- Core Team Member of The Protist Ribosomal Reference Database (PR2, pr2-database.org)
- Steering Committee Member of UniEuk (unieuk.org)
- Co-founder and Coordinator of EukRef (eukref.org) and organizer of 4 EukRef Workshops
- Co-organizer of the 1st edition of ESOP (The Electronic Symposium on Protistology)
- Reviewer for 44 journals and 10 research agencies.
Honors and Awards:
- Outstanding Mentor Award, Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science – University of Miami (Miami, Florida, USA), 2023.
- Public Voices Fellow, The OpEd Project (New York, USA), 2020.
- Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Fellow, Spanish Government (Spain), 2017.
- Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, European Commission (EU), 2014.
- Holz-Conner Travel Award, International Society of Protistologists, 2014.
Research Interests: My primary research interest is the ecology and evolution of microbes, particularly protists. I am currently studying the diversity and function of protists and fungi, which are symbionts of corals and other marine animals, and how they are affected by climate change.
Research Accomplishments: Throughout my career, I have worked on studying the diversity of protists using metabarcoding. I have contributed to expanding the known diversity within different groups of protists. I have improved the metabarcoding tools needed to study protists as the co-founder of EukRef and as a member of the executive boards of PR2 and UniEuk. In addition, I have contributed to developing methodologies that allow the use of the 18S rRNA gene as an effective universal barcode to study the eukaryome (the eukaryotic part of the microbiome). I am using these methods to unveil the protists’ members of the coral holobiont beyond the zooxanthellae.
Trainee member
NAME: Roudaina Boukheloua
Education: B.S., Biology, Master’s degree in Genomics and Environment, University Paris Saclay (2020), PhD in Limnology: Genomics and Metagenomics of Freshwater Protists, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic (ongoing)
Current Position: PhD Student, Department of Microbial Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Hydrobiology, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
ISOP member from: 2025
Other Professional Activities:
- Reviewer for ISME journal with the help of my PhD supervisor
- Helped the organization of two local conferences in my institute.
Honors and Awards:
- Barrande Fellowship 2024
- Erasmus exchange 2024
- Ceesme Poster Prize 2023 (Central and Eastern Europe Symposium on Microbial Ecology, organized by ISME)
- Erasmus exchange 2023
- EMBO Travel grant 2022
Research Interests: I have dedicated four years to studying protists using both culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches. During this time, I used CARD-FISH to estimate the abundance of heterotrophic protists like Telonemia and Katableoharids. Additionally, I developed a pipeline for extracting Protist MAGs from a decade-long metagenomic sampling study on freshwater lakes (currently unpublished). My work also includes cultivating aplastidic cryptophytes. My research vision for my future career is to integrate multiple approaches, i.e. Microscopy, Cell Biology, Genomics, and Bioinformatics to explore the evolution and diversity of these fascinating organisms.
Research Accomplishments:
- An article of Telonemia in the ISME journal entitled: Global freshwater distribution of Telonemia protists
- Establishment of collaborations with two protistology laboratories based in the EU:
- A collaboration with Dr. Kasia Piwosz in Poland to study Telonemia.
- A collaboration with the DEEM team led by Dr. Purificacion Lopez-Garcia and Dr. David Moreira to study the Symbiosis between Pirsonia and an endosymbiont bacteria, this includes the data analysis and the design of the fitness experiment.
Vision for ISOP: Alongside the contacts I have built in my home country, Algeria- where I began my studies, I aspire to organize workshops and online conferences to share my passion for Microbial Ecology and environmental sciences in general. As a young biology student in Algeria, I found that research opportunities were primarily focused on medical sciences. To pursue my passion for environmental Microbiology, I had to move to Paris and later to the Czech Republic. Now, I want to help other students in Algeria as well as other developing countries discover and explore this field which was not readily available to me.
NAME: Kaoru OKADA
Education: B.Ed., Tokyo Gakugei University, 2022.
Current Position: Ph.D. student, Department of Genetics, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI). Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellow (DC1).
Honors and Awards:
- 2023: Hiroko Morishima Progress Award, Department of Genetics, SOKENDAI.
Research Interests: My research interest lies in endosymbiosis between heterotrophic hosts and photosynthetic endosymbionts, particularly how these relationships function and how they have evolved in natural habitats. I am also interested in the generality and differences of photosymbiosis across different host taxa.
Research Accomplishments: My current research on photosymbiosis between the ciliate Paramecium bursaria and the green alga Chlorella variabilis revealed that this relationship contributes to longevity in nitrogen-depleted oligotrophic conditions, where aposymbiotic cells cannot survive. I identified that this survival ability is supported by the consumption of endosymbionts and a closed recycling system within the host cell.
Vision for ISOP: I would like to participate in and contribute to ISOP meetings through my research while also building an international network of researchers for the future of protistology research and community.
NAME: Elizabeth (Liz) Weston B.S., Marine Biology, Dalhousie University (2022)
Current Position: Ph.D. Candidate, Biology, Simpson Lab Dalhousie University.
ISOP member since: 2022
Other Professional Activities:
- Secretary of Biology Organization of Graduate Students at Dalhousie University
- Teaching Assistant – Microbial Eukaryotes (3000 level course) at Dalhousie University
- Maintenance of the Simpson Lab culture collection at Dalhousie University.
Honors and Awards:
- 2023-2026 Nova Scotia Graduate Research Scholarship
- 2023 Holz-Conner Travel Award (ISOP)
- 2023 Junior Gray-Doolittle Award for Research Excellence (Institute of Comparative Genomics, Dalhousie University)
- 2022 Science Atlantic Undergraduate Research Award (Best Poster) at Science Atlantic Aquaculture & Fisheries and Biology Conference, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Research Interests: My work seeks to improve our understanding of the early evolution of eukaryotic life using phylogenomics and electron microscopy. I am working to characterize the cytoskeletal ultrastructure supporting the ventral groove observed in a series of heterotrophic flagellates representing deep branches within Sar and the eukaryotic Tree of Life as a whole.
Research Accomplishments: First author of 1 paper representing my undergraduate research, and co-author of 2 other papers published or accepted pending minor revisions by the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology.
Vision for ISOP: If elected I would promote an initiative to bring trainee protistologists together to build community outside of annual meetings by organizing virtual meet ups which could include fun activities such as trivia, lightning talks, or guest speakers.
Nominating committee
NAME: Anastasiia (or Anastasia) Borodina. M.S., Biology, Voronezh State University (2022)
Current Position: Ph.D. student at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Evolution, Cell biology and Symbiosis Unit
Research Interests: I am fascinated by the diversity and biology of single-celled eukaryotes, their cellular adaptations to different environments, and their interactions within the microworld. Standing at the beginning of my research journey, I aim to explore the biology of gene-rich mitochondria and the changes associated with mitochondria loss by employing high-resolution volume microscopy, genomics and proteomics.
Research Accomplishments: Throughout my research career, I have gained experience in cultivating protists, studying their morphology using light and electron microscopy (TEM, SEM, Volume EM), as well as in phylogeny and single-cell omics (genomics, transcriptomics).
- June 2024 – JCS2024: Diversity and Evolution in Cell Biology. Poster with a Flash talk.
- April-June 2024 – Educational visit to Lund University, Courtney Stairs Lab (Protist biology, metabolic syntrophy, host-parasite interactions), where I learned more about FISH and anaerobic culturing.
Vision for ISOP: ISOP is an organization dedicated to fostering a passion for protistology, highlighting its history, future perspectives, and fundamental importance. It is a society that encourages open, friendly discussions, providing a platform for collaboration, sharing experiences, and expanding our knowledge.
NAME: Sergio A. Muñoz-Gómez
Education: B.Sc., Biology, Universidad de Antioquia (2013), Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University (2019).
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Plant Biology, Purdue University.
ISOP member since: 2012
Service to ISOP:
- Member of the ISOP Nominating Committee (2018 – 2020)
- ISOP Student Representative (2014 – 2016)
- Organizer of the symposium “The Integrative Co-Evolution between Mitochondria and Their Hosts” at the Annual meeting of the International Society of Protistologists (ISOP) in Moscow, Russia (2016).
Other Professional Activities: Reviewer for >26 journals
Honors and Awards:
- EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship (2020)
- Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarship (2016)
- Izaak Walton Killam Predoctoral Scholarship (2014/2016)
- Holz-Conner Travel Award (2017) by the ISOP
- 1st Eppendorf PostDoc-Preis (2015) by the International Society of Endocytobiology – German Section (ISE-G).
- Theodore L. Jahn & Eugene C. Bovee (2015) Award by ISOP
Research Interests: (1) The origin and early evolution of eukaryotes and mitochondria, (2) Transitions in cell evolution and the origin of cellular innovations, and (3) The evolutionary physiology of cells.
Research Accomplishments: I provided evolutionary and experimental evidence for the hypothesis that mitochondrial cristae evolved from intracytoplasmic membranes in alphaproteobacteria. I showed that the mitochondrial lineage is sister to most of the Alphaproteobacteria to the exclusion of the Magnetococcia and MarineProteo1, thus refuting the hypothesis that mitochondria are most closely related to the symbiotic/parasitic Rickettsiales. I showed that expanded respiratory membranes allowed by mitochondria in eukaryotes are required by larger and faster-dividing cells, thus promoting eukaryotic diversification.
Vision for ISOP: (1) Promote social events for trainees, (2) Increase awards and support for trainees, and (3) Establish interactions between ISOP and other societies.
NAME: Guifré Torruella
Education: B.S., Biology, Universitat de Barcelona (2009), Ph.D., Genetics, Universitat de Barcelona (2014).
Current Position: Postdoc, Complexity of Life, Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (UPF-CSIC).
ISOP member since: 2013
Service to ISOP: Participation with oral and poster presentations in ICOP XIV, Protist-2016, ICOP2017 and ECOP-ISOP 2023.
Other Professional Activities:
- Reviewer for >20 manuscripts in 18 scientific journals: Protist, Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, PeerJ, European Journal of Protistology, Environmental Microbiology, Metabarcoding & Metagenomics, Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution, BMC Biology, BMC Genomics, Systematics and Biodiversity, Biodiversity Data Journal, Nature Communications, New Phytologist, Gene, Communications Biology, Genome Biology and Evolution, MicrobiologyOpen, Microbial Ecology journals.
- Reviewer for Human Frontier Science Program Organization.
- Reviewer for best student presentation in ECOP-ISOP 2023, Vienna.
- Declined proposals to be associate editor in: Frontiers in Protistology: Evolution and Physiology of Protists section (2022) and Archives of Microbiology (2023) due to work constraints.
- Meeting co-organizer. The origins and evolution of multicellularity across the Tree of Life, Barcelona, 3 days (2025). Funded by SMBE (refused due to incompatibility), EMBO €51,020 & SSE €4k.
Honors and Awards:
- Jul 2021 William Trager Award. Most cited article, Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology.
- Oct 2020 Singekia montserratensis genome, Catalan Biogenome Project. 3k€
- Sep 2020 Beatriu de Pinós (2019 BP 00208) ID: 801370, MSCA–COFUND. 20k€
- Feb 2016 Marie Skłodowska Curie action (MSCA-IF 704566). 24k€
- Jun 2013 Holtz-Conner award from ICOP XIV.
- Aug 2012 EMBO’s short-term fellowship.
Research Interests: I have a longstanding interest in illuminating the deepest branches of the eukaryotic tree of life, unraveling ancestral states and understanding the evolution of different eukaryotic cellular features. To this end, I contributed to the known diversity of protists, with the characterization and formal description of 19 novel species and the generation of omics data for over 50 taxa. By integrating single-cell genomics, long-read sequencing, metagenomics and high-performance computing, I have resolved deep and conflicting phylogenetic relationships, reconstructed ancient evolutionary events, developed phylogenomic pipelines, and proposed evolutionary hypotheses for key eukaryotic transitions—including those that gave rise to heterotrophic flagellates, animals and fungi.
Research Accomplishments: 1 book chapter (The Domain Eucarya in the Tree of Life), 29 articles in GOA (17 in Q1), 3 reviews, 13 as first/co-first, 7 as co-corresponding, 2 as last author. Scopus: 2,376 citations; H-index 18.
Vision for ISOP: The society should reflect the open and welcoming identity of protistologists. I envision it as an inclusive community, starting with early-career students and researchers, encouraging them to propose and organize their own activities, such as workshops on methods in protistology, for example. I would promote hybrid meetings and even lineage- or topic-based working groups, as researchers are beginning to establish (e.g., Life of Retaria, Archaea Power Hour, Diplocon).I want the society to be a home for all protistologists—a digital space where everyone can connect with peers, find job opportunities, seek advice, share ideas and hypotheses, and foster collaborations. To start, I believe a blog where members can express their interests and experiences in protistology—from scientific insights to artistic perspectives—would serve as a great introduction and help break the ice.
NAME: Ryuji Yanase
Education: B.S., Science, University of Hyogo (2013); Ph.D., Science, University Hyogo (2018).
Current Position: Research Associate, Department of Genetics, Genomics and Cancer Sciences, University of Leicester
Other Professional Activities: Committee member of Japan Society of Protistology
Honors and Awards:
- 2024: Best Poster Award (the Chromosome Stability Meeting 2024)
- 2021: Best Presentation Award (the 4th Asian Congress of Protistology)
- 2019: Best Presentation Award (the 52nd meeting of the Japan Society of Protistology)
- 2014: Best Presentation Award (the 47th meeting of the Japan Society of Protistology)
- 2014: Best Poster Award (the 70th meeting of the Japanese Society of Microscopy)
Research Interests: My research interests lie in the unconventional biology of protozoan parasites, particularly their cell structures and interactions with vectors. Currently, I am mainly focusing on the sequestration mechanisms of kinetoplastid parasites in their insect vectors and the sexual reproduction of malaria parasites in their mosquito vector.
Research Accomplishments: I reported the function of the first key proteins that mediate adhesion of Leishmania parasites to its sand fly vector. I found loss of these proteins stops parasite adhesion, reducing physiological changes to the sand fly that will likely impact transmission. In addition, I elucidated the functions and interacting partners of key protein kinases during the male gametogenesis and meiosis in Plasmodium, using ultrastructure expansion microscopy, electron microscopy, and proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis.
Vision for ISOP: As a Nominate Committee member, I will act with fairness and impartiality. I will also committed to ensuring ISOP continues to be a place where protistologists can build relationships and engage in discussion.
