Chedly Abdelly

Professor Chedly Abdelly (born in 1957 Tunisia, married, 03 children’s) obtained his Doctorate of State in Natural Sciences from the Tunisian Faculty of Sciences (1997). He coordinated several national and international research projects and internationally recognized as an accomplished ecologist and eminent halophyte specialist. Professor Chedly Abdelly's work provides relevant data for the practical implementation of mitigation solutions to rehabilitate marginal environments. He successfully established several tools to improve crop productivity in extreme habitats by selecting resistant varieties or other suited wild endemic species with economical (human and animal consumption, precious sources of bioactive substances for agri-food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries) and ecological (stabilization and rehabilitation of marginal lands) interests. He significantly contributed to identify specific traits evolved by halophytes to cope with environmental constraints and proved the relevance of using halophytes as the most appropriate “models” to investigate salt tolerance mechanisms in plants. He has an outstanding proven track record of publications in distinguished journals (more than 500 publications, h-index 77, 24015 citations) and edited the book "Biosaline Agriculture and High Salinity Tolerance". Besides 03 patent inventions, he supervised 80 PhD thesis and 37 Master students. He obtained several prestigious prizes: the Presidential Prize of the Graduation Diploma from the Higher School of Teaching (1980), the Tunisian Presidential Award for the Best Researcher in Biotechnology (2016); the Tunisian Order of Merit for Science and Education (2017), the Tunisian Presidential Award for the best Laboratory (2018), and the prestigious African-level Continental Prize for scientific excellence "Kwame Nkrumah" (2020). He was elected as full member of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts (2019) and the African Academy of Sciences (2020) He serves as CEO of the Tunisian National Agency for Scientific Research Promotion since 2017, CEO of the Centre of Biotechnology of Borj Cedria (2011-2017); Director of the laboratories, Extremophile Plants (2010-2018) and Plant Adaptation for Abiotic Stresses (2002-2010).