Monica Höfte is a full professor at the Ghent University. She is the head of the laboratory of Phytopathology at the Department of Plants and Crops, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering since 1997 and head of the Department since 2022. She is an agricultural engineer with a PhD degree in microbial ecology. Monica Höfte is a general plant pathologist with a wide interest in both fundamental and practical aspects of plant-pathogen interactions. Her research interests are biological and integrated control of plant pathogens, and natural and induced resistance mechanisms against fungi and bacteria in a wide variety of tropical (cocoyam, rice, banana) and temperate crops (lettuce, tomato, bean, cabbage, pepper, grapevine). The group has been working on soilborne pathogens such as Pythium, Fusarium, Verticillium and Rhizoctonia for many years.  In the field of biocontrol, the focus is on cyclic lipopeptides produced by Pseudomonas and Bacillus strains.