Simona Margaritescu

Bio

B.Sc., University of Bucharest, Romania
M.Sc., University of Bucharest, Romania

Simona Margaritescu is a mycology technician in the Department of Natural History.

Simona joined the ROM in 2004 to fill in a newly created position of Mycology technician. Her position has two main facets. She manages the ROM’s fungal herbarium (TRTC) and is responsible for the operations of the Mycology molecular laboratory.

As the TRTC manager, Simona is responsible for the maintenance, preparation and identification of the fungal collections as well as the handling of loans and exchanges with other herbaria. In addition, she has been developing and managing the electronic database associated with these collections. Simona teaches specimen preparation and data recording techniques to casual staff, summer students and volunteers. She also responds to general inquiries about fungi and occasionally guides tours in the ROM’s fungal herbarium.

Besides her collection management responsibilities, Simona directs the day-to-day running of the Mycology molecular laboratory and assists in fungal research projects by generating and analyzing molecular data of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from various fungal species. She also teaches laboratory techniques to graduate and undergraduate students as well as visiting scholars.