Anikó Várnai holds an M.Sc. degree in Biotechnology Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and received her Ph.D. in 2012 at the University of Helsinki, Finland, on optimization of enzymatic saccharification of plant biomass. Since then, she has been working as a researcher at The Protein Engineering and Proteomics group led by Prof. Vincent Eijsink at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Her major research interest is in biomass valorization, with particular focus on understanding how fungal biomass-degrading and -modifying enzymes work in nature and in industrial biomass conversion processes and on applying that knowledge for process optimization. She is currently coordinating the ‘Biochemical Conversion’ subproject and leading the Enzyme Technology work package of the Norwegian Centre for Sustainable Bio-based Fuels and Energy (Bio4Fuels), funded by the Research Council of Norway in 2016. In 2017, Dr. Várnai was selected as one of only 16 individuals to enter NMBU’s three-year Research Talent Programme, which aims at helping young top researchers to increase their competence in research, education and management on the way to establishing an independent research group. In 2020, she was awarded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and became an Emerging Investigator within Biotechnology-based Synthesis and Production. In 2021, she was promoted to Senior Researcher/Professor.