Background: I was born and brought up in a small village, "Lachhera", which belongs to a city Muzaffarnagar in Indian province Uttar Pradesh. The city is located in the middle of highly fertile upper Ganga-Yamuna river region and is quite close to the capital of India "New Delhi".
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In 2007, I got my masters in plant biotechnology from a sister university (SVP University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut, India) of India’s first agriculture university “Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agril., Tech., Pantnagar”, UK, India. My masters’ thesis was on” Tagging of blast disease-resistant genes in rice”. Later, I joined Molecular Biology Laboratory in the Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics at SVP University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut, India as a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) and later on as a Senior Research Fellow (SRF). As JRF and SRF, I worked on "Development of the blast and bacterial leaf blight diseases resistant hybrid rice varieties using marker-assisted selection”.
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In 2012, I moved to the United States and joined Dr. Andy Pereira’s lab as a Beachell-Borlaug International Research Scholar under a prestigious Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program in the Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA. With Dr. Andy Pereira, I got associated with an independent project on drought stress focusing on “Development and characterization of rice genotypes for water use efficiency and drought resistance” and collaborated with Dr. Arvind Kumar at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Philippines. Our lab focuses on systems genetics analyses of rice genomes for drought, heat and other abiotic stresses on rice grwoth and development at the physiological, molecular and genetic levels. My research expertise on genetic disection of of rice diversity panels for physiological, grain yield, and quality traits under drought and heat stresses under greenhouse as well as field conditions, Meta-QTL analysis for drought-related traits, Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) for drought and heat tolerance, and a large set of data analysis using advanced statistical tools. My favorite research interest is to indentify favourable alleles/SNPs and candidate genes associated with physiological and prodcutivity traits in rice using advanced genetics techniques.
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In 2017, I started working on Federals grants (NSF-MCB and NSF-EPSCoR) funded projects for identification of natural genetic variants/ candidate genes associated with grain yield and grain quality under abiotic stresses (drought and heat) using advanced genomics approaches.
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In 2023, I joined RiceTec Inc., (Genetically focused hybrid rice industry) as Molecular Analytics and Conversion Lead for leading RiceTec's rice crop global molecular analytics program providing strategic and analytical support for genome, gene & trait discovery, trait deployment, and introgressions programs.
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As an aspirant molecular analyst and geneticist, I believe in multidisciplinary research perspective problems through network and collaboration with the advanced scientific community.
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Fun Facts: When I am not working in my office, I love to hang out with family. We also explore new foods, new places, and nature.
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