Ashwani Kumar
Former Head of the Department of Botany, and Director Life Sciences
University of Rajasthan
India
Biography
Professor Ashwani Kumar MSc (Botany) Gold Medal, Ph.D. (1971) University of Rajasthan. Awarded Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship Germany, Visiting Professorship JSPS Japan, U.K. INSA-DFG Germany. Worked in areas of plant pathology, physiology, renewable sources of energy, biofuel biotechnology, photosynthetic carbon fixation in C3 and C4 plants with support of projects granted by UGC., USDA-ICAR., MNES, CSIR, DST and DBT and FACT. Visited USA, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, UK , Japan, France, Sweden, Spain and Portugal for research. Published around 180 papers in National and International journals. Fellow of various societies FBS, FPSI, FISMPP and FMA. Guided research to 39 students to Ph.D. Consultant of World Bank Project sanctioned to SPRI-HPPI and Biodis Spain. Published 16 books including Plant Tissue Culture A tool in Biotechnology Basics and application and edited book on Fern Biotechnology both by Springer. He also has another 14 books mainly in the field of Biotechnology to his credit. He was awarded V Puri Medal 2008 for Botany and CEE award for excellence in teaching and research 2015.
Research Interest
plant pathology, plant tissue culture and morphogenesis, plant biotechnology, plant physiology, pharmacognostisc and ethnobotany and renewable sources of energy