Journal of Horticulture
Open Access

Rayda Ben Ayed

Biography

Dr. Rayda BEN AYED received her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Faculty of Sciences of Sfax (Tunisia) in January, 2013. In her thesis work, she pioneered the technique of olive oil analysis and traceability through innovative molecular approach. Since 2013 to this date, she is working on traceability, authentication, adulteration and labelling of commercial olive oil using multidisciplinary tools and innovative system. She has got expertise in biological engineering, agri-food products, plant molecular biology, bioinformatic, bio-statistic and experimental design modeling. She has taught bioinformatics, biostatistics, structural and metabolic biochemistry, and molecular biology in both the Higher Institute of Biotechnology of Sfax and the Faculty of Sciences of Sfax. In addition, she supervised several projects of master and engineering degrees.

She is also member of scientific associations like the Tunisian Association of Genetic Resources (TAGR), and has served as the editorial board member of several journals.

She published more than 35 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed international journals and books. She is also involved in several national and international research programs and networks.

Moreover, she developed a database named OGDD Olive Genetic Database Diversity (http://www.bioinfo-cbs.org/ogdd/): a microsatellite markers' genotypes database of worldwide olive trees for cultivar identification and virgin olive oil traceability.

Particularly, she was awarded by several international laboratories (USA, France, Turkey,…) as an expert for studying olive oil traceability based on DNA analyses; the third price of the best innovative project from scientific research organized by the Univenture competition in 2015; and the best presentation at the third edition of the International Conference of Engineering Sciences for Biology and Medicine in 2017.

Research Interest

Bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, computational statistics, database, data mining, industrial engineering, networking, olive oil, plant genetics, molecular markers, genomics.