National Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Dr. Beat Keller
FOREIGN FELLOW, ELECTED 2022

Born in Interlaken, Switzerland on 14 September 1958. Educated at Kirchenfeld Gymnasium, Bern 1974-78; University of Basel, 1978-85; M.Sc. 1982; Ph.D. 1985; Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Habilitation, 1995.

Full Professor for Plant Molecular Biology and Molecular Phytopathology, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich, Switzerland, 1997 to date.

Postdoctoral Fellow The Salk Institute, San Diego, USA, 1986-89; Group leader in Biotechnology at the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agronomy, Agroscope, Zürich, 1989-97; Lecturer at ETH Zürich, 1995-97; Director of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich, 1998-2014.

Awards/Honours: University of Basel, PhD "Summa cum laude", 1985; European Molecular Biology Organization Longterm Fellowship, 1986-88; Habilitation at Swiss Federal School of Technology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland, 1995; Vice-President of the Swiss National Academy of Science, 2001-2006; Editor, Theoretical and Applied Genetics; Member of the Executive Committee of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, 2006-2018; Advanced Grant of the European Research Council 2010-15; Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Section Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, 2015; International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium Outstanding Leadership Award, 2016. Member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation, 2014 - 2022; Member of the Specialized Committee "Careers" of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Invites speaker for the “Biffen Lecture” John Innes Center, UK in 2023. Invited speaker and session chair, MPMI Conference Glasgow, 2019; Invited speaker at 1st International Forum on Crop Science, Green Crops for Sustainable Agriculture, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 2019; Invited speaker Agricultural Genomics - Functional Genomics Towards Green Crops for Sustainable Agriculture, Nature Conferences, Wuhan, 2017.

Fellow: German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

Research Areas: Molecular biology and genomics

Address: Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zurich, Zollikerstrasse 107, CH-8008 Zürich, Switzerland; Scheuchzerstrasse 24, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland; [Tel: Off. (+41) 44 6348230, 6348211; Res. (+41) 44 3639433; Cell: (+41) 79 3316984; Fax: (+41) 44 6348204; Email: bkeller@botinst.uzh.ch]