Interview with Heribert Hirt

As a son of an engineer who traveled widely during his career, Heribert Hirt began his life in the exotic country of Iran, before receiving his high-school education in Germany and then studying biochemistry at the University of Cape Town and then later at the University of Vienna, from where he received his PhD in 1987. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Vienna, Oxford, and Wageningen, before starting his own group at the University of Vienna in 1993. It was also in Vienna that he became professor of genetics in 1997, followed by vice-director of the Gregor Mendel Institute of Plant Molecular Biology, and later head of the Plant Molecular Biology Department of the University of Vienna. In 2007, he decided that it was time for new challenges and accepted an appointment in France to direct the Paris-based INRA-CNRS Plant Genomics Institute for the following 7 years. In 2014, Heribert embarked on yet another challenge by accepting the role to head up the Center for Desert Agriculture at King Abdullah University of Sciences and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.