Teresa Coutinho is a professor and staff member of the Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Pretoria.  She is also the director of the Centre of Microbial Ecology and Genomics, and a founding member of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute at this University. Her research interest is in phytobacteriology, primarily on those pathogens that are not typically pathogenic to plants, for example, Enterobacter species. Using genomic and metagenomic approaches, she has investigated mechanisms used to infect plants.  She has also researched primary pathogens such as Xanthomonas vasicola, X. musacearum, Ralstonia solanacearum and R. pseudosolanacearum.