Zohara Yaniv – Bachrach (Hebrew: זהרה יניב-בכרך) (born 1937) is an ethnobotanist, researcher and lecturer in the field of medicinal plants. Areas of scientific study Professor Yaniv specializes in the field of Medicinal Plants and in Ethnobotanical research, biochemistry of secondary metabolites, effect of metabolites of higher plants as potential drugs and biodiversity of native plants and its preservation. She also deals with the development of new crops, mainly from oil plants, and studies oil quality of seeds and its effect on nutritional supplements. Biography Early years Zohara Yaniv was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1937. After completing three years of military service in nahal, she pursued her botany studies (MSc) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1957–1962). Researcher at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and the Agriculture Research Center (ARO) On completion of her PhD studies in plant biochemistry at the Dept. of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York in 1967, Yaniv came to the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Yonkers, N.Y, as a postdoctoral research fellow and stayed there as a researcher for 11 years. Yaniv's research studies involved the ribosomal activities in uredospores of the bean rust fungus and its role in spore germination and senescence with the hope of better understanding the mechanism of obligate parasitism. During the summers of 1968–1977, she was an instructor in the NSF Student Science Training Program at BTI, and during 1976–1977, she was the director of this program. In 1978, Zohara moved back to Israel, where she was appointed as a Senior Scientist at the then newly formed Department of Medicinal Plants, at the Agriculture Research Center (ARO), Bet-Dagan, Israel. Yaniv worked there until her retirement in 2002. Zohara Yaniv's research involved ethnobotanical studies of medicinal plants in Israel, as well as studies related to the effect of the environment on secondary metabolites. She was a visiting scientist at the NIH, Bethesda, Maryland (1987), as well as at the University of Paris (1995), and acted as visiting professor at the university in Vienna and at the Academy of Science in Shanghai, China (2001–2000). For six summers she conducted an international course in ethnobotany at MAICH Chania in Crete, Greece. International cooperation in agricultural research In 1993 Zohara was appointed as Director of the Unit of International Cooperation of the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO). In this capacity, she was responsible for international PR of the ARO, and