Soumia Fahd is a Moroccan herpetologist at

Abdelmalek Essaâdi University Abdelmalek Essaâdi University () is a Moroccan public university created in 1989. It is considered to be the main university in the North of the Morocco. This university is made up of 15 institutions, including schools and establishments spread ac ...

Tétouan Tétouan (, or ) is a city in northern Morocco. It lies along the Martil Valley and is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea, a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about E.S.E. of Tangier. In the 2014 Morocc ...

Life and work

In high school, Fahd studied experimental sciences. For her BSc, she studied Industrial Engineering at the

University of Mons The University of Mons (, ) is a Belgian university located in the city of Mons, founded in 2009 by merging the Engineering Faculty of Mons (FPMs) and the University of Mons-Hainaut. The merging of the institutions was achieved following a g ...

(Belgium). (in French). She then returned to Morocco to study biology at the

Mohammed V University Mohammed V University (, ) is a public university in Rabat, Morocco. It was founded in 1957 under a royal decree ( Dahir). It is the first modern university in Morocco after the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez. It is named after Mohammed V of ...

and continued her education at the Faculty of Sciences of Tetouan, earning a degree in animal biology in 1986. Fahd initially joined the Faculty of Sciences of Tetouan in 1986 as an assistant. She is a full professor at that university where she heads the Laboratory of Ecology, Systematics, Biodiversity Conservation, which she founded in 2012. For three decades, she has been dedicated to studying amphibians and reptiles. In 2008, a Moroccan insect, ''

Clonopsis ''Clonopsis''Pantel L (1915) ''Bull. Soc. entomol. Fr.'' 1915: 96. is a stick insect genus in the family Bacillidae. Species have been recorded from mainland Europe and North Africa. Species * '' Clonopsis algerica'' (Pantel, 1890) - type spec ...

'' ''soumiae'' was named in her honour, as she hosted the research group collecting, breeding and analysing the ''Clonopsis'' insects in Morocco. Dr. Fahd has organized several academic conferences, such as the Biology of the Vipers Conference in 2017. Since 2015, she is part of a network of Mediterranean women scientists.

Awards and honors

2008: ''

'' ''soumiae'' was named in her honour 2019: She won a Research Excellence Award for Morocco's Best Researcher Award (in French).

Selected publications

* Santos X, Brito JC, Sillero N, Pleguezuelos JM, Llorente GA, Fahd S, Parellada X (2006). "Inferring habitat-suitability areas with ecological modelling techniques and GIS: a contribution to assess the conservation status of ''Vipera latastei'' ". ''Biological Conservation'' 130 (3): 416–425. *Fahd S, Mediani M (2007). "''Herpetofaune du bassin versant de Oued Laou'' ". ''Wadi 6 FP, INCO-CT2005'', ''15226''. (in French). * Velo-Antón G, el Marnisi B, Fritz U, Fahd S (2015)." Distribution and conservation status of ''Emys orbicularis'' in Morocco." ''Vertebrate Zoology'' 65 (1): 131–134. *Nicolas V, Mataame A, Crochet PA, Geniez P, Fahd S, Ohler A (2018). "Phylogeography and ecological niche modeling unravel the evolutionary history of the African green toad, ''Bufotes boulengeri boulengeri'' (Amphibia: Bufonidae), through the Quaternary". ''Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research'' 56 (1): 102–116. * Chergui B, Fahd S, Santos X, Pausas JG (2018). "Socioeconomic factors drive fire-regime variability in the Mediterranean Basin". ''Ecosystems'' 21 (4): 619–628.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fahd, Soumia 1960 births Living people Moroccan women scientists Moroccan scientists Herpetologists Women biologists Academic staff of Abdelmalek Essaâdi University Mohammed V University alumni University of Mons alumni