UQ student lab exchange: Charlotte Häuser

PhD student Charlotte Häuser from JLU's Department of Genetics of Crop Diversity is spending three months at the University of Queensland from September to December 2025, conducting research with the team of Dr. Millicent Smith.

Millicent's research focuses on understanding the physiological mechanisms that underpin yield stability and quality in grain legumes — a perfect match for Charlotte's work in Germany on yield stability in faba bean under heat and drought stress. This alignment enabled Charlotte to contribute directly to an ongoing UQ project developing new chickpea varieties with improved heat tolerance and reduced yield loss under high temperatures.

During her exchange, Charlotte participated in chickpea germplasm screening under heat stress at various developmental stages in UQ's fantastic new Plant Futures Facility. She acquired new techniques for flower phenotyping in chickpea during stress treatment, which she is eager to apply to faba bean research when she returns to JLU.

The collaboration has already proven fruitful: Charlotte, together with members of the Department of Genetics of Crop Diversity, Millicent's team and researchers from other universities, completed a shared publication on night heat stress in grain legumes, which was initiated before the exchange and finalized during her stay at UQ.