Ane Sesma obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry, majoring in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (Universidad Autónoma Madrid, Spain). As a researcher, her interests focused on the dissection of molecular mechanisms underpinning bacterial and fungal plant diseases. She was awarded with a European Marie Curie fellowship to work with Magnaporthe oryzae on novel cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with root infection in Prof Anne Osbourn’s lab (The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK). During this period, she published a first author Nature paper, co-authored another paper in PNAS, and generated further results to write a project funded by the BBSRC David Philips fellowship. This award allowed her to initiate in July 2005 her research programme on new aspects of fungal pathogenesis and RNA metabolism at the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK). She joined the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP, Spain) as a Senior Lecturer/Group Leader in September 2011. She wrote successful projects to the EU, the Spanish Research Council and the Community of Madrid, which allowed her to expand her research programme based on post-transcriptional mechanisms regulating fungal plant infection. After leading successfully her research group, she was appointed as International Research Funding Manager at University of East Anglia (UEA), and supported the delivery of UEA’s QR GCRF (Quality-Related Global Challenges Research Funds) program grant. Currently, she works closely with academic and other professional colleagues to ensure effective procedures are in place to support bidding for and delivery of doctoral programmes at UEA.