Meet Daniel Knapp: “Working at the edge of what we know is always exciting”

Could you tell us about your new role as Senior Lecturer?
My role has several important components. I focus on research and on developing and implementing scientific projects, while also contributing to the establishment of a new research environment. I am also actively involved in teaching and in supervising Master and PhD students.

What motivates you in your work?
It might sound cliché, but curiosity is my main motivation. I love discovering new things, strange patterns, and enigmatic correlations-connections. Working at the edge of what we know is always exciting. I am also motivated by the students, colleagues, and people around me, whose different perspectives continuously push me to think differently and improve every day.

What does your research focus on?
I study microorganisms, mainly fungi and their interactions with plants. It’s important to mention that plants are never alone; they live together with a large number of microorganisms. Even a healthy pine needle can host hundreds of different fungal species. Some can be beneficial, some can cause diseases under certain conditions, and many are still poorly understood. Leaves, twigs, bark, sapwood and heartwood all host different microbial communities. My main aim is to understand how these organisms influence tree health, pathogens and how they function in nature.

Have you experienced a moment that made you realize this is what you wanted to do?
My interest started very early. I grew up in Budapest, Hungary and have always lived in grey panel buildings without gardens. Around these blocks of houses, many times I found beautiful mushrooms emerging in the small green patches and I conducted my first mushroom collections and identifications there.

This fascination with fungi only deepened over the years, and I have been working mainly with fungi ever since.

What kind of societal change do you contribute to?
Through my research, I think, I contribute to better understanding plant health and biodiversity, which is essential for sustainable land use and disease management. Through teaching and my involvement in the new Forestry Master program, I also hope to strengthen the biological perspective of future professionals in forestry and scientists working with environmental challenges.

What do you value most about teaching?
Teaching has been a priority since the very first week of my PhD, and for over 13 years I have been consistently involved in higher education before coming to Linnaeus University as a postdoc. What I value most about teaching is that it constantly forces you to develop beyond your own expertise. For me, enthusiasm is the key to a good class; students immediately sense whether a teacher truly cares and puts real effort into a topic. Beyond knowledge transfer, you have to find what excites you in a subject and pass that engagement on, which can stay with students long-term and may become the foundation for long-term interest in the topic. Ultimately, it comes down to being passionate about what you do.

Speaking of being passionate – you are involved in building a new research environment, ForestEDGE. What does this mean in practice?
One of my major roles is to contribute to the establishment of a new research infrastructure and scientific environment, the ForestEDGE laboratory. This gives us the possibility to use microbiological and cutting-edge molecular biological techniques locally, which is essential both for research and education. I see this position as a long-term commitment where I can contribute to science and to student education at the same time.

And finally – when you are not thinking about research and fungi, what do you enjoy doing on a day off?
I love being outdoors with my family or even alone. Trail running and mushroom foraging are my favorites. The Småland landscape, with endless forests and lakes, is perfect for this. It's fascinating to me that here I just have to step out of my home or office, and I am already in nature.