Sandra Smit

Sandra Smit is an Associate Professor in Bioinformatics at Wageningen University & Research, specializing in genomics and bioinformatics. Her research focuses on pangenomics, microbial and plant genetics, and their applications in agriculture and evolutionary biology. She leads projects exploring genomic diversity in species like Pectobacterium, Arabidopsis, and Rosa, with a particular emphasis on pathogen adaptation, plant breeding, and genomic tool development. Dr. Smit has supervised multiple PhD students, including Flege, Syma, Papastolopoulou, and Selvanayagam, and collaborates on projects such as 'Developing an efficient pangenome representation' and 'Lactuca Diversity and Evolution.'

Her work involves analyzing genomic variation in polyploid species, prophage dynamics in bacterial pathogens, and transcriptomic regulation in photosynthetic plants. She has contributed to the development of tools like PanVA and Multipla for genomic analysis. Key datasets include genome assemblies for species such as Hirschfeldia incana and Picochlorum sp. BPE23, highlighting her focus on genomic resources for agricultural and ecological applications.

Recent publications reflect her interdisciplinary approach, covering topics from Fusarium head blight pathogen adaptation to comparative genomics of Capsicum and rose genomes. She actively engages in international collaborations, advancing both fundamental and applied research in bioinformatics and genomics.