Dr. Robert Hasterok is a professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice. He graduated in 1994 from the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection at the University of Silesia in Katowice. In 1999, he was awarded a Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Silesia in Katowice. He completed post-doc fellowships at Aberystwyth University, UK (1999–2005), and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp (2002–2004). In 2006, he was awarded habilitation and was promoted to professor in 2012. He is a recipient of the Barbacki National Scientific Award of the Institute of Plant Genetics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2001), the Minister of Science and Higher Education Award (2011), and the Gold Badge of Merit for the University of Silesia in Katowice (2019). He is a member of many organizations and societies in Poland and abroad, such as the International Brachypodium Initiative, the Committee on Cell Biology, Division II: Biological and Agricultural Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Scientific Council of the Institute of Plant Genetics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Committee of Developmental Biology of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Genetics Society of Australasia, and the Vavilov Society of Geneticists and Breeders of Ukraine. His research interests focus on plant molecular cytogenetics. He is an expert in fluorescence in situ hybridization techniques to study plant genomes.