Luck

Dr Jo Luck is a principal research scientist in Plant Microbiology in the Biosciences Research Division, DPI Victoria and is Key Project Leader for the Bioscience program, 'Adapting to agricultural pests and diseases under future climates'.

Jo completed her PhD at the Australian National University and CSIRO Plant Industry on the molecular mechanisms of plant disease resistance studying the flax-rust system. She has over 15 years experience working in molecular plant pathology, with 10 years experience specialising in plant biosecurity and is the national expert on Pierce's disease of grapevines.

In 2005, Jo and her team commenced a research project on modelling the impacts of climate change on plant and animal biosecurity and have recently expanded this work to include vector-borne diseases such as citrus greening, Barley yellow dwarf virus, Murray Valley Encephalitis and Bluetongue Virus.  In 2007 Jo's team commenced a project on understanding the influence of enriched CO2 on major wheat pathogens in the National Grains FACE Array, located at Horsham, Victoria. 

Jo leads the CRCNPB project on the impacts of climate change on plant biosecurity which brings together both the predictive and empirical analysis of the impacts of climate change on plant pests and diseases.