Mike Wingfield

Michael John Wingfield (born 21 April 1954) is a South African academic and scientist who studies plant pathology and biological control. He was the founding director of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria. Wingfield has authored or co-authored over 1,000 scientific publications and is considered a leading expert in the field of forest health and invasive species. He has received numerous awards and honours throughout his career, including Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award and John Herschel Medal, the highest accolade from the Royal Society of South Africa. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and the African Academy of Sciences. Wingfield has had several fungi named after him.

Life and career

Early life and education

Michael "Mike" John Wingfield was born on 21 April 1954 in Durban, South Africa. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Botany from the University of Natal in 1976, before completing a Master of Science in plant pathology while working for the Plant Protection Research Institute of Stellenbosch University, in 1979, graduating with distinction. He continued as a professor at FABI and an advisor to the Executive Board of the University of Pretoria. a joint venture between the FABI and the China Eucalyptus Research Centre (CERC), in 2015. CFTPP was renamed to RIFT-FABI Tree Protection Programme (RFTPP).

Personal life

Wingfield is married to Brenda D. Fairbairn,

Research

Wingfield's research focuses on forest protection and health, mycology, entomology, and biotechnology. He has worked on several projects and partnerships studying diseases that affect pine, eucalyptus, and other significant plants. He, along with his students and collaborators worked on various pathogens, including Ceratocystis, Ophiostoma, Mycosphaerella, Fusarium, Cryphonectria, and Armillaria species. His team has used traditional and molecular approaches to classify and distinguish infections, define a novel, sometimes cryptic species, and determine evolutionary connections.

Wingfield is an expert on plants' health with an h-index of 120 and more than 69,000 citations as of August 2023, over 700 research papers and seven books. He has been featured in the Web of Science list of the world's most-cited researchers since 2018.

Awards and honours

Wingfield is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences in 2016.

For his contributions and collaboration in the field of forestry, Wingfield was awarded the Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Medal by the Southern African Society for Plant Pathology Society (SASPPS) in 1999, the Johanna Westerdijk Award from the CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Netherlands in 2012, the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence in 2013, the University of Minnesota's Distinguished Leadership Award in 2016, John Herschel Medal, the highest accolade from the Royal Society of South Africa, in 2017, the Chinese Government's Friendship Award in 2017, and Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award in 2022.

Wingfield received an honorary doctorate of science (DSc) from the University of British Columbia in 2012, Leptographium wingfieldii ; Asterina wingfieldii ; Catenulostroma wingfieldii ; and Gondwanamyces wingfieldii . Racheliella wingfieldiana was named after his first grandchild, Rachel.