Richard
Summerbell, PhD
Dr. Richard Summerbell is one of the world’s foremost experts on fungi affecting human and environmental health. He is the author of over 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers on fungi and bacteria, and is also the co-author of two popular laboratory manuals, Identifying Filamentous Fungi (G. St. Germain and R.C. Summerbell, Star Publishing, 1996) and Laboratory Handbook of Dermatophytes (J. Kane, R.C. Summerbell et al., Star Publishing, 1997). He is a recognized expert in three areas, indoor mycology, medical mycology and soil mycology.
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In indoor mycology, he is best known for contributing major chapters to books such as Microorganisms in home and work environments (edited by B. Flannigan, R. Samson and J. D. Miller. Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, 2001) and Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (edited by V.P. Kurup and A.J. Apter, 1998), as well as for co-authoring Canada’s influential guidelines for air quality in public buildings, Fungal contamination in public buildings: A guide to recognition and management (Health Canada, 1995).
In medical mycology, apart from the textbooks listed above, he is best known for research on dermatophyte evolutionary systematics; Fusarium, Phaeoacremonium and Phialemonium species involved in human opportunistic infections; and diagnosis of onychomycosis. In the last-named area he has co-authored the second most highly cited paper ever published by the widely read medical mycology journal Mycoses.
In soil mycology, he is an authority on the mycology of forest tree roots and on the evolution of plant pathogens to become human pathogens.
He has served as the editor-in-chief of the journal Medical Mycology and has also been an associate editor of Studies in Mycology and Mycopathologia; in addition, he served for 10 years as an editorial board member of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. He has co-authored two papers with over 100 citations in Science Citation Index and five more with over 50 citations, including a paper in the journal Nature.
His scientific career began in the late 1970’s with a M.Sc. thesis on basidiomycetous yeast ecology and genetics at the University of British Columbia. His 1985 Ph.D. thesis from the University of Toronto was on the fungal ecology of the symbiotic root zone of black spruce trees. He worked as a postdoc, a research scientist and then as chief mycologist for the Ontario Ministry of Health from 1986 to 2000, and then served from 2000 to 2006 as senior researcher and group leader for the CBS Fungal Biodiversity Centre (Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures), a branch of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 2007 he was pleased to accept a position as research director with Sporometrics Inc. of Toronto, Canada, a dynamic research-oriented company working in the field of industrial hygiene and indoor air quality. He looks forward to many interesting and dynamic collaborations with the CEO of Sporometrics, Prof. James Scott (Univ. of Toronto).
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