Dr Louise Cooke - BSPP Elected Board Member
Louise is a plant pathologist with the Agri Food and Biosciences Institute in Belfast and is responsible for research into control of diseases of Northern Ireland crops. After studying biochemistry at Bristol for her first degree (during which she took a course in mycology from the formidable Professor Lilian Hawker), her plant pathological career began when she applied for a studentship to investigate the control of Dutch elm disease at Long Ashton Research Station. Supervised by Derek Clifford of Long Ashton with John Gibbs of the Forestry Commission, she spent many happy hours at Westonbirt Arboretum injecting elms with acidic solutions of carbendazim, but although she gained her PhD for this work in 1978, it proved impracticable in saving many elms. During 3 years as a Potato Marketing Board-funded postdoc at Long Ashton, she was introduced to potato blight by Professor Jim Hirst, then Long Ashton’s Director.
In 1981, she moved to Belfast to take up a post with the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland’s Science Service, now the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute (AFBI), and as a Queen’s University lecturer. Potato blight is a major focus of her research: her arrival in Northern Ireland coincided with the appearance of resistance to the phenylamide fungicides in Phytophthora infestans and she continues to investigate the changing P. infestans population and its control. She belongs to the Euroblight network, is currently involved with an all-Ireland late blight project and has active collaborations with US scientists. Her other research interests include apple canker and Rhynchosporium in barley.
She joined the BSPP in 1982 and has been a member of the Editorial Board of Plant Pathology since 2001. She is also currently chairman of the Society of Irish Plant Pathologists, a member of Council of the European Association for Potato Research and of the Fungicide Resistance Action Group (FRAG-UK).