Team Members
Maya Bar | Group Leader
I have a dual development and defense background. I started my lab in Volcani in 2017, and moved to BGU in 2025.
E-mail: barm@bgu.ac.il
Galit Yehezkel | Lab Manager
Iftah Marash | Research associate
2019-2024: PhD: The roles of TOR in plants and fungi during plant-fungus interactions.
Since 2025: Bar lab research associate, fungal and plant developmental specialist
E-mail: marash@post.bgu.ac.il
Meirav Leibman-Markus | Research associate
Meirav is a plant immunity specialist, investigating induced resistance and bio-control pathways activated by plant beneficial fungi.
E-mail: meiravleibman@gmail.com
Loida Tejada | PhD Student
Loida is researching plant to plant communication occurring between different species.
E-mail: tejada@post.bgu.ac.il
Evanson Ngugi | PhD Student
Evanson is conducting his PhD in the Teper Lab at Volcani Institute jointly with our lab, researching host adaptation in plant pathogenic bacteria
E-mail: ngugi@post.bgu.ac.il
Mili Zanbar | PhD Student
Mili is an agronomist, working on agricultural aspects of induced immunity
E-mail: milimoprn@gmail.com
Roi Amichay | MSc Student
Roi is working on agricultural aspects of our plant communication system
E-mail: amichayr@post.bgu.ac.il
Dana Mata | MSc Student
Dana is researching the effect of environmental stressors on plant communication
E-mail: matada@post.bgu.ac.il
Danielle Ron | Undergrad
Danielle is doing a research project in fungal developmental biology
E-mail: rondani@post.bgu.ac.il
Paz Bashan | Undergrad
Paz provides technical assistance in several lab projects
E-mail: bashanp@post.bgu.ac.il
Alumni
Rupali Gupta | Post-doc
2018-2025: Plant communication and structure function relationships in plant microbe interactions.
E-mail: rupaligupta862@gmail.com
Gautam Anand | Post-doc
2019-2025: Plant-fungus interactions and fungal cytokinin sensing.
E-mail: gautaming@gmail.com
Naomi Lindner | MSc Student
2022-2025: Age-related immunity and organ structure effects in plant-pathogen interactions.
E-mail: naomi.mendes@mail.huji.ac.il
Chen Benoni | MSc Student
2022-2026: Relationships between pathogenicity and induced resistance in plant-fungus interactions.
E-mail: chenbenoni@gmail.com
Anat Schneider | MSc student
2020-2025: Relationships between development and defense pathways in induced resistance.
E-mail: anatschneider7@gmail.com
Dorin Elkabets | MSc student
2020-2022: Effects of altered plant chemistry on plant-microbe interactions.
Udvashika Puri | MSc Student
2021-2022: From the International Masters program at the Faculty of Agriculture, Udvashika was involved in examining the roles of trafficking proteins in cellular immunity in tomato and Arabidopsis.
E-mail: udvashik.puri@mail.huji.ac.il
Bat-El Neeman | Undergrad
2021-2022: Technical Assisstant.
Lorena Pizarro | Post-doc
2019-2020: The effects of alterations to cellular trafficking pathways on plant-pathogen interactions. Now: PI at the University of O'Higgins, Chile
E-mail: lorepizaro@gmail.com
Ofir Gershony | Post-doc
2017-2019: Themes of constitutive immuno-activation.
E-mail: ofir.sadefalk@gmail.com
Emen Brody | Undergrad
2018-2019: Cellular aspects of Plant-pathogen interactions.
E-mail: emen.brody@mail.huji.ac.il
