Dr. Samira Daroub, FAFS Alumna and an internationally acclaimed soil and water scientist and professor, has been named Director of the UF/IFAS Everglades Research & Education Center (EREC) on February 16, 2022. Dr. Daroub becomes the second woman in the history of the 100-year-old center to take the helm. Located in Belle Glade, Florida, the center's campus includes offices, laboratories, greenhouses, a 700-acre research farm, and residential dormitories and housing for graduate students and visiting scientists, all in the heart of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA).
Daroub arrived at EREC in 2000 as an assistant professor and later become a professor and then associate center director at the center. Daroub now leads a team of nine faculty members and 80 graduate students, post-doctoral associates and staff at UF/IFAS EREC. Together they provide support for the EAA's dynamic, agriculturally diverse region, which includes sugarcane, rice, commercial sod, and winter vegetables like sweet corn and leafy greens. Research at EREC covers a wide range of fields including agronomy, entomology and nematology, horticultural sciences, plant pathology, and soil and water sciences. The area's growers are also supported by regional extension agents based at EREC and at other UF/IFAS Extension offices in the EAA. Daroub earned her bachelor's degree in agriculture and a diploma in agricultural engineering from FAFS, AUB. She later obtained her master's in soil sciences there.
To learn more about her new appointment, please click here.
