I am a mycologist in the Biodiversity Dynamics research group, headed by Hans Ter Steege, at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. My motivation for research has always been the desire to explore, document, and conserve the richness of nature, particularly its biological diversity. I have been using molecular methods to study fungal diversity at different levels: 1) systematics based on a combined molecular and morphological approach; 2) speciation studies using phylogeography, population genetics, and coalescent methods; and 3) landscape ecology of fungal communities using DNA metabarcoding. I acquired two independent Ph.D. degrees, one in Evolutionary Genetics and Plant Pathology at the Pennsylvania State University (2001-2004) and another in Mycology at the Corvinus University of Budapest in Hungary (1998-2005). I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (2004-2009) and at Leiden University in the Netherlands (2009- 2011) before joining the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in 2011 as a research scientist. More information on my work can be found at https://science.naturalis.nl/en/people/scientists/jozsef-geml/