Mariam Kourani

Dr. Mariam Kourani is a Research Fellow at Cranfield University's Centre for Soil, Agrifood and Biosciences, specializing in bioinformatics applications for agricultural and environmental challenges. She works on the AMBROSIA project investigating climate change impacts on fungal infections in cereals, with a focus on Fusarium species dynamics under different climatic scenarios.

Her educational background includes:

• BSc in Biomedical Science
• MSc in Clinical Microbiology (focusing on bacterial resistance and antibiotic stewardship)
• MSc in Applied Bioinformatics from Cranfield University (thesis on bioinformatics analysis of vanilla transcriptome)
• PhD from Cranfield University's Bioinformatics Group (research on transcriptomic and metabolomic adaptations to climate change in oilseed rape)

Dr. Kourani's research interests center on applying computational approaches to understand plant responses to environmental stressors. Her work integrates transcriptomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics to study climate change impacts on agricultural systems, with particular expertise in Brassica species and cereal pathogens. She has published significant work on heat stress responses in oilseed rape, examining molecular and biochemical mechanisms at both genetic and metabolic levels.

Her publication record shows a clear research trajectory from clinical microbiology early in her career to plant bioinformatics and climate change adaptation research. Her most recent work demonstrates sophisticated integration of multi-omics approaches to address critical agricultural challenges posed by climate change, with potential applications for crop breeding programs.

As part of her role at Cranfield, Dr. Kourani collaborates with researchers from the University of Reading and contributes to the FoodBioSystems Doctoral Training Partnership. Her current work on fungal infections in cereals represents an important expansion of her research expertise into plant pathology under changing climatic conditions.