Dr. Maria Söderlund-Venermo is the current president of the WSV (2024-2026). She obtained her MSc at the University of Helsinki, Department of General Microbiology, and her PhD at the Department of Virology, Helsinki, Finland. She was a visiting scientist at the University College London, London, UK, and did her postdoctoral training at the Departments of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology and Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Missouri-Columbia, MO, USA in 1996-98. She is adjunct professor of virology and university lecturer, Department of Virology, Faculty of Medicine, Helsinki University, Helsinki, Finland. She has published many virology publications in peer reviewed highly ranked journals and has served as ad hoc reviewer for ~50 international scientific journals, as well as an expert evaluator in various international calls. Her positions of trust include the Finnish Society for the Study of Infectious Diseases (secretary 2007-10), the Finnish-Norwegian Medical Foundation (board member since 2016) and she is a member of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Parvoviridae Study Group. Her research interests include both clinical and molecular virology, with the main focus on parvovirus B19, bocaviruses, and emerging human DNA viruses.