Dr. Tarek Hewezi is a Professor of Plant Molecular Biology in the Department of Plant Sciences. Dr. Hewezi earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Crop Sciences at Menoufia University, Egypt. He was awarded his doctorate in Plant Biosciences from the “Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse” in France. Following his Ph.D., Dr. Hewezi accepted a postdoctoral position at Génoplante-INP-ENSAT in France, where he worked in the area of sunflower functional genomics. He then joined the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology at Iowa State University, initially as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and later as an Associate Scientist. His research focus at Iowa State University was the molecular and biochemical characterization of the compatible interaction between cyst nematodes and host plants.

The Hewezi laboratory is interested in deciphering the mechanisms of action of cyst and root-knot nematode effectors and their impacts on plant growth and development. His laboratory is also interested in understanding the epigenetic regulation of plant response to biotic and abiotic stresses in Arabidopsis and soybean by combining molecular biology with cell biology, biochemistry, genetic and genomic approaches. This research program is expected to determine cellular components of plant growth and defense signaling that directly or indirectly interact with each other. Interrupting this association will lay the foundation for new approaches to increase plant performance, yield and defense simultaneously.