Faouzi Bekkaoui is the Director of the Agriculture School at the University Mohammed 6 Polytechnic (UM6P) in Benguerir Morocco, starting April 1st 2017. Prior to joining UM6P, he was the Executive Director of the Wheat Improvement Flagship Program at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in Saskatoon between December 2012 and March 2017. He also served during this time as the chair of the Canadian Wheat Alliance Management Committee. Faouzi obtained his grade 12 in Berkane (Morocco) in 1978, then a Bachelor in Physiology (Maitrise) at the University Francois Rabelais in Tours in 1982 and a PhD in Plant Physiology at the University of Paris 6 in 1986. He then went to Canada where he worked as a post-doctoral fellow and research associate at the NRC Plant Biotechnology Institute (PBI) in Saskatoon in the fields of plant molecular biology and biotechnology. In 1993, Faouzi joined the ID Biomedical Corporation in Vancouver to manage research and product development projects involving DNA diagnostics. In 1999, Faouzi assumed the position of Laboratory Manager with GenServe Laboratories at the Saskatchewan Research Council. He joined Genome Prairie in April 2003 as Project Manager. In 2006, Faouzi rejoined NRC-PBI as Program Manager of Seed Systems. In subsequent roles, he served as Acting Research Director, the leader of the 'Biorenewable Oils for Food and Fuel' Program and Associate Director of PBI prior to the role of Executive Director. During his career, Faouzi has co-authored 28 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of DNA diagnostics, molecular biology, genomics and plant physiology. He holds three U.S. patents involving DNA diagnostics.