aboutme

Hmmmmm..... where to begin? How about the beginning? I was born on November 16, 1966 and spent the first 19 years of my life in the town of Youssoufia, Morocco, where I attended Kachkat High School. Youssoufia is essentially a miners town, the most notable features of which are that it is the main phosphates resource of Morocco, the world's number one producer. It is just west of Marrakech and just east of Safi harbor on the Atlantic Ocean. Little of note happened during those 19 years.

Next I moved to El Jadida, where I spent a very happy 4 years studying all aspects of biology at Doukkali University. El Jadida is a wonderful city and a gorgeous sea resort. During these days, I spent a great deal of time enjoying the greatness of the Atlantic, often in the company of my room mate and university friend and also my brother Hassan.

After graduation (1990), I moved to Strasbourg, a charming city which I consider to be one of the finest places I have lived. I started by studing for a Master Degree (or DEA as they have it there) at Louis Pasteur University, researching the occurence of Listeria in French soft cheese and the effects of irradiation on typical microbiological and sensory properties of the cheese, under the supervision of Prof. Claude Hasselmann. I then went on with my supervisor batteling against Listeria through a Ph.D. (or Doctorat as they have it there) but this time using the mighty Bacteriocins. Louis Pasteur University were kind enough to give me a Ph.D. (sorry, Doctorat), and as by then I'd developed into a full-blown science masochist, I decided to continue with research in a similar field.

One thing I'll never forget about Prof. Hasselmann is that he totally reoriented my writing skills by teaching me how to make beautiful and breath-catchingly long sentences. I really love those sentences in my thesis report which is in French of course. But one of the major drawbacks is that this does not seem to be working in English, since I am constantly being asked to cut-off sentences by journal referees!

While and until one year after completing my thesis, I also very much enjoyed teaching as an ATER, which stands for attaché temporaire d'enseignement et de recherche (teaching and research associate).

I did my first postdoc in the Applied genetics and Dairy Research Unit at the INRA (National Institute for Agronomic Research) Jouy-en-Josas, Paris, where I studied the properties of enterocin A from Enteroccus faecium within the team of Prof. M. Desmazeaud.

In February 1998, I decided that the time had come to see something different...That was possible in Japan, where my second postdoc was completed Kyushu University. Kyushu is the southern island of Japan and it's really a great place to live.

Last year (July 2000) I moved back to Japan as an STA Research Fellow in the National Grassland Research Institute (NGRI), which is based in Kanto about 100 km north of Tokyo. I work within a small but friendly unit specializing in the study of lactic acid bacteria from silage. Most of the work I have done since my thesis has been in connection with bacteriocins, and this continued to be the case until recently. For a change, and to prove myself that I am not addicted to bacteriocins, I started working on the molecular identification and physiology of lactic acid bacteria.

That's almost about it! You can find detailed information about my research by going to the corresponding pages. The on-line version of my resume has been split into various categories. However, to get an overview of my resume, you might like to click on the resume button. Alternatively, there is a fully formatted Word 97 version. You may request a hard copy of my resume by sending me an email message at ennahar@hotmail.com. You may also contact me by phone at (81)28-737-7804 during office hours and at (81)28-736-9655 the rest of the time.