Rate My Professor Roosa Laitinen

Roosa Laitinen is Associate Professor in Genomics-based Plant Science in the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki. She serves as director of the Viikki Plant Science Centre and supervisor for the Doctoral Programme in Plant Sciences. Her research centers on the molecular and genetic mechanisms that enable plants to adapt to fluctuating environments, exploring their evolutionary consequences through genetics, genomics, and molecular biology approaches using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system. She investigates natural genetic variation, genome interactions in hybrids and their incompatibilities, phenotypic plasticity, temperature responses in flower and leaf size, growth trade-offs, and broader implications for plant populations and crop resilience under climate change. Laitinen's work spans scales from single genotypes to communities, molecular mechanisms to complex phenotypes, and controlled greenhouses to natural habitats.

Laitinen obtained her MSc in Biology from Mid Sweden University in 2001, MA in Theoretical Philosophy from the University of Helsinki in 2006, and PhD in Genetics from the University of Helsinki in 2006, where her thesis examined flower development in Gerbera hybrida. She then pursued postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, from 2007, before establishing and leading a research group on molecular mechanisms of plant adaptation at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm from 2011. In 2015, she was awarded the title of Docent in plant genetics by the University of Helsinki. She joined the University of Helsinki as Associate Professor in April 2021. Key publications include 'A TCP domain transcription factor controls flower type specification along the radial axis of the Gerbera (Asteraceae) inflorescence' (PNAS, 2008), 'Genetic basis of plasticity in plants' (Journal of Experimental Botany, 2019), 'Temperature-mediated flower size plasticity in Arabidopsis' (iScience, 2022), 'Importance of phenotypic plasticity in crop resilience' (Journal of Experimental Botany, 2024), 'Strategies to identify and dissect trade-offs in plants' (Molecular Ecology, 2024), 'Metabolic modeling identifies determinants of thermal growth responses in Arabidopsis thaliana' (New Phytologist, 2025), and 'Spliceosomal Factor SmF Modulates Temperature-Mediated Flower and Leaf Size Plasticity in Arabidopsis thaliana' (Plant, Cell & Environment, 2026).