Sarrah Ben M'barek

Sarrah Ben M'barek-Ben Romdhane is a Tunisian-Dutch crop researcher. She works on developing fungus-resistant wheat strains to reduce the toll of Mycosphaerella graminicola on yields.

Early life and education Ben M'barek was born in Tunisia in 1979.

Ben M'barek received her bachelor's degree in Tunis, then moved to the Netherlands for graduate studies. She completed her master's and doctorate in plant biotechnology at Wageningen University where she was supervised by Gert Kema. After completing her master's, Ben M'barek returned to Tunis to lecture and intermittently returned to Plant Research International in Wageningen to pursue her research. When she was awarded a L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship in 2007, she was able to return to the Netherlands full-time to focus on her PhD.

Career Ben M'Barek became a researcher in the Laboratory of Molecular Plant Physiology of the Biotechnology Center of Borj Cédria, Tunisia after completing her PhD. In 2015, she joined the Wheat-CRP Tunisia-Septoria Precision Phenotyping Platform of the CIMMYT. In 2017, she started working at Beja Regional Field Crop Research. She is a manager for the Septoria Platform Laboratory,

Awards and honours 2019 Junior Award for excellence in Science and Technology of ATUGE. 2017 Women in Triticum Early Career Award. 2007 Fellowship from L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science. Ritzema-Bos Award for Excellence of the Royal Netherlands Society for Plant Pathology. Fellow of the Arab Women Leaders in Agriculture.

Personal life Ben M'barek is fluent in four languages and hopes to use her connections to foster collaboration between Tunisia and the Netherlands.

She has stated that being a mother and scientist "in a post-revolution country who recently embraced democracy" has its challenges, but she is passionate about leading the scientific development of her country and helping to eradicate hunger.