Donnabella Lacap-Bugler

Donnabella Castillo Lacap-Bugler (Lacap) is a Filipino–New Zealand academic microbiologist, and is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in extremophiles, soil microbial ecology, and oral microorganisms.

Academic career
Lacap-Bugler completed a Bachelor of Science at St Paul University and a Master of Science at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. She went on to do a PhD titled Biodiversity and ecology of geothermal springs in the Philippines at the University of Hong Kong, supervised by Stephen Pointing. Lacap-Bugler then joined the faculty of the Auckland University of Technology in 2015, rising to associate professor in 2019 and full professor in 2023.

Lacap-Bugler is on the editorial board of the journal International Journal of Applied Science – Research and Review.

Lacap-Bugler's research focus was initially on endophytic fungi on medicinal plants, and the molecular diversity of bacteria living in extreme environments during her postgraduate and postdoctoral work in Hong Kong. She led research into photosynthetic cyanobacteria in desert ecosystems in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, which may help in identifying traces of bacterial life in other extreme systems such as a Mars. More recently she has studied the microbial ecology of oral microorganisms, studying the link between oral pathology and systemic disease.

Lacap-Bugler is an associate investigator in the New Zealand's Biological Heritage National Science Challenge, where her students have researched the microbial communities in soils around kauri trees in the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park, and investigated their physicochemical makeup, looking to see if there are correlations with tree disease.