Dr. ir. Margo Diricksis a 34-year old postdoctoral researcher specializing in non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM). Her work focuses on the genomic analysis of NTMs, including the development of bioinformatic tools for rapid taxonomic classification, antimicrobial resistance prediction, plasmid detection and outbreak analysis. She has analyzed genomic data from over 200 NTM species and have linked those to clinical data and, notably, the presence of plasmids, contributing to the global understanding of NTM diversity, evolution, pathogenicity and transmission. She created and validated the core genome multi-locus sequence typing scheme for M. abscessus, which is used worldwide to analyse population structure and transmission chains. Her research has led to multiple high-impact publications and several awards (two times for best oral presentation and one time DGHM best paper of the month) and has succesfully supported outbreak investigations and treatment recommendations in collaboration with several national reference centers. Additionally, she contributes to capacity-building efforts in 12 African countries through training activities under the EDCTP-funded PANgenS project, promoting genomic epidemiology of tuberculosis and NTM in low-resource settings.