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.