Agriculture Research Institute
Elia Choueiri earned his B.Sc. degree in agricultural engineering from ESIAM-USJ in 1990, M.Sc. in Plant Virology from CIHEAM-Bari in 1992 and PhD in Plant Protection from Bari University, Italy in 1997.
Since 1998, he joined the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute in Lebanon (LARI) as a research scientist in plant pathology/virology and head of Plant Protection Department. Throughout his career of 27 years at LARI, research focused on evaluation of the sanitary status of major crops such as potato, legumes, pepper, tomato, stone fruits, pome fruits, grapevine, olives, citrus, ornamental plants, etc. with focus on viral and phytoplasma diseases, in collaboration with European Agricultural Institutes and Universities and International Organizations. He served as national coordinator and expert for several projects dealing with plant diseases, certification, assessment of the occurrence of quarantine diseases (Brown rot and ring rot on potato, Plum pox virus, fire blight, Xylella fastidiosa, etc.) in collaboration with International Institutions. Dr. Choueiri is also interested in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Climate change impact on agricultural pests and diseases. The most important scientific achievements of Dr. Choueiri were the discovery and characterization of a large number of plant diseases in Lebanon and abroad such as Almond Witches’ Broom, Xylella fastidiosa on almond, American plum line pattern virus (APLPV), Grapevine yellows diseases such as Bois noir and Candidatus Phytoplasma omanense’-related strain, Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 7 (GLRaV-7), etc., save native genotypes of strategic fruit tree species, development of a coherent and modern legislative framework in the field of production of certified propagation material, sanitary inspection of imports and regulation of the nursery sector, improvement of the Department of Plant Protection-Tal Amara laboratories and development of standardized and sensitive methods to identify the major plant pathogens and quarantine diseases of fruit trees and vegetables according to international standards. He contributed to the scientific knowledge through 109 papers in refereed journals, 5 papers in non-refereed journals, 78 papers in international conferences, 16 papers in regional and national Conferences, 14 chapters in international books, 17 booklets/books and 10 extension bulletins in the field of plant diseases. He won the CNRS Fifth Annual Research Excellence Award, in Agricultural Sciences in recognition of his distinguished scientific research in “Plant Protection” in 2015.
Dr. Choueiri is an active member in several scientific societies such as Arab Society for Plant Protection (ASPP), Mediterranean Phytopathological Union (MPU), American Phytopathological Society (APS), International Council of Virus and Virus-like Diseases of Grapevine (ICVG) and International Phytoplasmologist Working Group (IPWG).
Dr. Choueiri also serves as a reviewer for Journal of Phytopathology, Journal of Virological Methods, Phytopathologia Mediterranea, Tunisian Journal of Plant Protection, Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection, Plant Disease and Arab Journal of Plant Protection (and member of the Editorial Board 2015-present).