Meriem Aoun, from Tunisia, received her bachelor degree in agricultural engineering at the Agronomic Institute of Chott Meriem, Tunisia, and her MS in Genetics and Plant Biotechnology at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, Greece. She pursued her PhD in Plant Pathology at North Dakota State University, U.S., where she worked to identify sources of rust resistance in durum wheat and understand the virulence and genetic diversity in wheat leaf rust pathogen (Puccinia triticina). Meriem recently joined Rebecca Nelson’s lab at Cornell University to research maize pathology to mitigate the effects of ear rot pathogens on crop yield and human health.