Plant pathologist Bochra Bahri joins UGA turfgrass research team
Bochra Bahri has joined the University of Georgia as an assistant professor of plant pathology. Based on the UGA Griffin campus, Bahri will conduct research on turfgrass and forage diseases that affect growers in Georgia, the nation and around the world.
A native of Tunisia, Bahri earned a degree in engineering from the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia. She traveled to Paris for graduate school, completing a master’s degree in plant protection and environment from AgroParisTech and a doctorate at the University of Paris-Sud XI.
“For my PhD, I worked on wheat yellow rust disease and studied the pathogen structure in the Mediterranean area and tried to understand how the pathogen evolved according to the climate and its host,” she said.
While many American students would consider studying in Paris a dream opportunity, Bahri was accustomed to Paris because she visited often to see family there. Her dream opportunity came in April 2006 when UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences plant genetics Professor Katrien Devos hired her for a position in her laboratory in Athens, Georgia.
While working on a six-month post-doctoral position at the Aarhus University in Denmark, Bahri applied for a position in Devos’ laboratory on the UGA campus in Athens.