Dr. ir. Margo Diricksis a 35-year old postdoctoral researcher specializing in molecular epidemiology of 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 and antimicrobial resistance, 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 and has succesfully supported outbreak investigations and treatment recommendations in collaboration with several national reference centers. Additionally, she contributes regularly to in-person and online capacity-building efforts and training activities in African and European countries. Beyond her direct supervision of several doctoral candidates, she also serves as an institute-wide confidential mentor for PhD researchers. Lastly, she has contributed to major guideline documents and antimicrobial resistance databases, including those from ESGEM-AMR, NTMprofiler, CLSI, EUCAST, ERLTB-NET, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).