Rosanna Catherine Hennessy

Rosanna Catherine Hennessy is a Guest Researcher in the Microbial Ecology and Biotechnology section of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Science. Her research bridges fundamental microbial science with practical biotechnological applications focused on sustainable agriculture.

Her educational background includes a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from University College Dublin (2008-2012), a BSc in Biological Sciences (Honours Biotechnology) from the University of Edinburgh (2004-2008), and a Teaching and Learning Higher Education Program from the University of Copenhagen (2018-2019).

Dr. Hennessy's research centers on understanding how soil bacteria synthesize secondary metabolites and enzymes, particularly focusing on bacterial lipopeptides from Pseudomonas species. Her work employs interdisciplinary approaches combining omics technologies, bacterial genetics, biochemistry, and metabolomics to characterize microbial interactions. She investigates how beneficial bacteria interact with plants and other microbes to promote soil health and crop resilience, with particular interest in molecular mechanisms of bacterial signaling and metabolite production.

Her scientific contributions have been recognized with several awards including the NovoNordisk Fonden Emerging Investigator Grant (2022), Copenhagen Microbiology Center Symposium Presentation Award (2015), and the University College Dublin Carmel Humphries Memorial Medal (2011). She has also received competitive fellowships including the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship and SGM Scholarship.

Dr. Hennessy has co-supervised 9 BSc and 5 Master's students (2014-2018) and currently teaches multiple courses including Advanced Microbial Biotechnology, Applied Microbiology, and Molecular Genetics. She leads the Novo Nordisk Foundation Project INTERACT (2023-2027) focused on decoding the rhizobiota interactome for improved crop resilience, along with the Emerging Investigator Grant 'BoostR' for engineering small molecule regulation in bacteria.

Her research group employs molecular tools for studying microbial interactions, including gene editing techniques, reporter gene technology, and microplate-based imaging, complemented by chemical analysis to study metabolic profiles. The team collaborates extensively across Denmark and internationally on projects related to microbial communication, sustainable agriculture, and biotechnological applications of microbial enzymes.