Dr. P. Panneerselvam, graduated in agricultural science and earned his Master's and Doctoral degrees with Gold medal in the field of Agricultural Microbiology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. Starting his career at Central Coffee Research Institute, Chikmagalur, as Research Assistant, in 1998, subsequently as Field Scientist until 2006, he joined ICAR on 8th Jan 2007, as Scientist at the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru. Then, he has joined as Senior Scientist at ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, India on 24th Sep 2015, on Sep 2018, he has been promoted as Principal Scientist and continuing his service with the same post. He is awarded as "Fellow" of Confederation of Horticulture Associations of India in 2015 and FSASS in 2021. He has received the Best NRRI worker (Senior Scientist) award at ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack in 2019 and Dr. B. Vasantharaj David Award in 2018 for his achievements in the field of Agricultural Microbiology. He has developed Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for on-farm processing of coffee for the minimization of mould/mycotoxin contamination and a novel microbial consortium and AM fungal package for nursery seedling production, root lesion nematode and leaf rust management. He has developed Soilless Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Inoculum production and patent (3817/CHE/2014) has been granted for this invention. The Arka Microbial Consortium (AMC) developed by him is popular for horticultural crop production, its application saves 25% of NPK fertilizers, besides enhancing yields by 10-16% in different horticultural crops. This AMC technology has been licensed to thirty five entrepreneurs, including KVKs and the Department of Horticulture, Government of Karnataka, India. Another technology, i.e. Actinobacterial consortium (Arka Actino Plus) developed by him is playing pivotal role in improving plant health in different horticultural and plantation crops, this technology also licensed to private entrprenuer for the benefit of farming community. Recently, he developed formulation "Microbial consortium (MC) for pest and disease management in rice-horticulture based cropping system in Sikkim, Bio-fertilizer consortium (BC) for nutrient management in rice-horticulture based cropping system in Sikkim" and NRRI decomposing microbial consortium for paddy straw residues management. As one of the co-investigators, he has developed following technologies Arka fermented Cocopeat, Azolla sporocarp formulation for nitrogen management in low land rice and liquid bioinoculant of endophytic (Azotobacter chroococcum) and Rhizospheric (Azotobacter vinelandi) nitrogen-fixing bacteria for rice crop. He had been overseas training on Bioremediation to Universityrsity of South Australia, under NAIP programme, in which he has identified novel bacterial consortium for remediation of chromium contamination in soil and water. Dr. Panneerselvam has published 119 research and review papers in peer-reviewed journal and has authored twenty proceedings papers, 3 books, 40 popular articles, 08 research/ technology bulletins. He has guided 15 post graduate and 02 PhD students. Dr. Pradeep K. Das Mohapatra did his Ph.D. in the year 2008 from Vidyasagar University. He is now working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Raiganj University, Raiganj-733 134, Uttar Dinajpur, W.B., India. He is also acting as a Director of Professor A. K. Bothra Environment Conservation Centre, Raiganj University. Dr. Das Mohapatra has significantly contributed in the field of Microbial Enzyme Biotechnology, Environmental and Industrial Microbiology. He has worked on microbial nutrition & diversity, Fermentation, Probiotics, Immobilization, Bioinformatics and enzymes like Tannase, Xylanase, Amylase, Cellulase, Keratinase etc. He is presently working on Metabiotics. Dr. Das Mohapatra has published 03 books (Microbial Fermentation and Enzyme Technology, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group and another two on Biofertilizer) more than 150 original research papers in reputed National and International Journals, 08 book chapters, 05 review papers, 06 popular articles and filed 02 Patents. He is also attended 08 training programmes on microbial research, covered 40 National and International conferences and delivered 22 invited lectures. Dr. Mohapatra has more than 20 years of research and 13 years of teaching experiences and received research funds from UGC, Govt. of India, Biostadt India Ltd. and Sanzyme Private Limited etc. 12 no. of Ph.D. students already awarded Ph.D. under his supervision and 06 are working. Dr. Mohapatra has received Jr. Scientists of the Year award 2008 and Environmentalist of the Year Award 2009 from National Environmental Science Academy, New Delhi. He is nominated as fellow of the Society for Applied Biotechnology in the year 2011. He is also serving as an editorial board member of three journals and reviewers of many journals of Elsevier, Blackwell, Springer and Taylor & Francis. Dr. Mohapatra is also associated with many academic and research societies like AFB (France), NESA (New Delhi), BRSI (Trivandrum), AMI (New Delhi), PBVM (Kolkata), The Indian Science Congress Association (Kolkata) SAB (Dharward) etc. Dr A.K. Nayak assumed the charge as Director, ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack on 9th Nov 2022. He received Ph.D in Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry in 1997 from Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU. He started his scientific career as a scientist at ICAR-CSSRI RRS, Anand, in the year 1996. Subsequently, he worked as Principal Scientist at ICAR-PDFSR, Modipuram and at ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack as Principal Scientist. Since 2014 till date he has been working as Head, Crop Production Division at ICAR-NRRI. During 25 years of his research carrier he has worked on problem soil management (saline, sodic and iron toxic soil), water quality mapping and modeling, management of poor quality irrigation water, carbon sequestration and nutrient management in rice-rice and rice-wheat systems and the budgeting of greenhouse gas emissions in lowland rice-rice system under different water and nutrient management practices. He has been elected as Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASI), Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (FNAAS), Fellow of Indian Society of Soil Science (FISS), Fellow of Association of Rice Researcher Worker (FARRW). He received many recognition and awards like Nanaji Deshmukh ICAR Award 2020, SCON & SIT Award 2021, Endeavour Fellowship from Department of Education and Training from Govt of Australia 2018, IPNI-FAI Award 2016, Hari Om Ashram Award 2012 from ICAR, New Delhi, ISSS-Dr. J.S.P. Yadav Memorial Award 2013, Norman E. Borlaug Fellow in the Year 2008. He was deputed as visiting scientist to SWERI, ARC Egypt on salinity management in the year 2008 under indo Egypt work plan. He has over 219 research papers; 14 books and several book chapters and technical bulletin for his credit. H-index : 40; i10-index : 121; Citations : 5268 on his credit. Mr. Debasis Mitra received B.Sc. Biotechnology degree from Vidyasagar University, India and M.Sc. Biotechnology degree from Graphic Era (Deemed to be University), India. He is an alumnus researcher of ICAR- Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, India. Currently, he is a Doctoral Scholar in the Department of Microbiology at Raiganj University, Raiganj, West Bengal 733134 India, working at ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, India and completed his virtual doctoral internship from Agroenvironmental and Health Biotechnology Laboratory, Universidad de Santander, Colombia. He earned online course certificates on "Microbiology and Forensic Science" from Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan; "Climate Change" from Macquarie University, Australia and "Agriculture and the World We Live In" from Massey University, New Zealand in the year 2018. He has published more than 65 research and review papers in various high impact peer-reviewed journals of national and international repute, contributed 3 books, 24 book-chapters, 1 newsletter, 2 research technical bulletin, 1 extended-summary, 3 technology, 100 e-Publication, Editor/EBM of 6 Journal, 8 journal special edited, 108 number of paper reviewed (WoS) and several popular articles in leading magazines and journals. He is awarded as Fellow of Scholars Academic and Scientific Society (FSASS) in 2021, received best editor award of the year 2021 in "Indian Journal of Microbiology Research", best reviewer of the year 2022 in "Current Agriculture Research Journal" & "Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal" and ranked 5th (2022) & 4th (2023) in World Scientist and University Rankings 2022, 2023 by AD Scientific Index. He has developed "Cocopeat with rice husk and saw dust compost as a nursery medium for growing vegetable seedlings" and As one of the co-author, developed "Microbial consortium (MC) for pest and disease management in rice-horticulture based cropping system in Sikkim and Bio-fertilizer consortium (BC) for nutrient management in rice-horticulture based cropping system in Sikkim". He has attended more than 65 national and international conferences/webinar/seminar/workshop symposium/ lectures. He is a member of International Association for Agricultural Sustainability, American Association for Science and Technology, South American Mycorrhizal Research Network, GEO BON: Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network, Society for the Study of Evolution and International Association of Oncology. He served as an editorial board member, special issue lead editor, guest editor and reviewer of several national and international journals. His research is focused on Plant-Microbe Interactions, Mycorrhizal interactions, Soil Microbiology, Bio-control, Molecular Biology and Strigolactones. Dr. K. Velmourougane holds PhD (Gold medal) in Microbiology from IARI, New Delhi. He is currently working as Senior Scientist (Microbiology) in the Division of Crop Production, ICAR-Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur. K. Velmourougane was Gold medalist from the prestigious Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. Before joining ICAR as ARS Scientist, K. Velmourougane has served as Scientist (Microbiology) at the Central Coffee Research Institute, Coffee Board, Chikmagalur, Karnataka, working on role of post-harvest technology in coffee quality improvement, including soil health, crop productivity and sustainable challenges in coffee production. He also has wide experience in pesticide residues, pollution and mycotoxin management in coffee. Under NAIP project "Georeferenced Soil Information System for Land Use Planning and Monitoring Soil and land Quality for Agriculture" he has worked on soil biological quality assessment of black soil regions and Indo-gangetic plains of India, which covered 32 bench mark soils to study soil microbial diversity, soil enzyme activity, microbial biomass carbon and linked these attributes to crop yield and soil quality index for the first time. He has worked on Trichoderma viride- Azotobacter chroococcum biofilm, its development and characterization. The developed biofilm has been proven beneficial in terms of plant growth enhancement, improving soil nutrient mobility and soil fertility in crops such as wheat, cotton and chickpea. Further, he has expertise in metagenomics and transcriptome analysis of biofilm and soil microorganisms. He underwent International Training on "Carbon Trading/Carbon Sequestration/Climate Change (Crop Sciences)" at Center for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), University of South Australia during 2014 under the guidance of Prof. Nanthi S. Bolan, Chair in Environmental Science CERAR. Presently, he is working on the development of microbial biofilm-based formulations and rhizoengineering for enhancing soil health and cotton productivity. He has been awarded SERB-DST funded project to work on microbial volatiles for sucking pest management in cotton. To his credit, he has more than 150 research publications, 3 copyrights, 3 training manual, 14 technical reports/bulletins, 3 newsletters, and 38 conferences & symposia and 25 book chapters in national and International repute. His expertise in the subject is well evidenced from his publications in well reputed Internationals journals (Journal of Basic Microbiology, Applied Microbiology and Biochemistry, Archives of Microbiology, Microbiological Research, Journal of Applied Microbiology, FEMS Microbial Ecology and Plant and Soil). He has been a speaker in several national and international conferences to discuss various issues in coffee quality improvement, cotton microbiology, soil health enhancement, and role of microbial biofilms in soil and crop productivity. Prof. Sergio de los Santos Villalobos was born in Chahuites, Oaxaca, México in 1985. He obtained his degree, with honorific mention, Biochemistry engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Celaya in 2007, where his scientific curiosity, in the area of biology, began, which was strengthened by his participation in the production of microbial inoculants of agricultural interest in the private sector. In 2012, he completed his doctorate at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN) Unidad Irapuato, with the specialty of plant biotechnology. In 2013 and 2014 he completed postdoctoral stays at CINVESTAV-Irapuato and the Technological Institute of Sonora, respectively. He has conducted research stays in the United States, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Cuba, New Zealand, Austria, among others, on cutting-edge topics in the agricultural biotechnology area. His current assignment, since 2014, is as Researcher of the National Council of Science and Technology commissioned to ITSON. He belongs to the National System of Researchers level 2. His scientific work has focused on the study of microbial ecology, plant x microorganism x soil interactions, as well as the production of microorganisms using agro-industrial residues. These lines of research have been developed with ecological, physiological, biochemical, and genetic approaches (from in vitro to field trials). Since 2010, he has participated actively in international projects under the Regional Cooperation Agreement for the Promotion of Science and Nuclear Technologies in Latin America and the Caribbean, sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, focused on the study of soil erosion and fertility. His scientific contributions have been honored with a special mention of the AgroBio 2013 (national) Prize, winner of the Tecnos 2014 (international) Award, obtaining patents and national registrations, member of the international expert panel of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Atheneum Partners On soil conservation and the generation of microbial inoculants for agriculture, respectively. He is currently the Head of the Microbial Resource Biotechnology Laboratory and Director of the Collection of Edaphic Microorganisms and Native Endophytes, Editor of the Open Agriculture Journal, Current Research in Microbial Sciences, and Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture. The lines of research developed and their products are the result of solid teamwork composed of students and collaborating institutions, to generate scientific knowledge and the integral training/strengthening of human resources.
