Vittoria Catara is a full-time Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Catania; she coordinates a research group involved in plant-associated bacteria studies. She received her Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of Bari in 1995. She is a member of the Italian Society for Plant Pathology, the Italian working group on phytopathogenic bacteria, the Mediterranean Phytopathological Union, and the Australasian Society for Plant Pathology.