Famous Scientist Rajeev Kumar Varshney

 

Rajeev Kumar Varshney

Rajeev Kumar Varshney is a geneticist currently working as Principal Scientist- Applied Genomics at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India and also Theme Leader - Comparative and Applied Genomics (CAG), Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), hosted at CIMMYT, Mexico.

Rajeev Varshney has over 10 years research experience in the area of plant genomics and crop biotechnology. He has interest in development and application of genomic tools and strategies for applied breeding of the legume and cereal crops of the semi-arid tropics.


He received his Bachelor degree (B.Sc. Honours) in Botany and Masters degree in Botany (Genetics, Plant Breeding and Molecular Biology) from the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh in 1993 and 1995 respectively. Subsequently, he joined the laboratory of Professor P K Gupta at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, to work on a Wheat Biotechnology Project sponsored by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. 

Based on his work done on the project, he earned his doctoral degree (PhD) in Agricultural Botany (Molecular biology) in 2001.


After receiving PhD degree, Rajeev Varshney took up an assignment of Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (Research Scientist) at Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics & Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany. He worked there for five years in the area of structural and functional genomics of barley and comparative genomics of cereals. Subsequently he accepted the assignment of Senior Scientist for Applied Genomics at ICRISAT in late 2005. While working at ICRISAT, he took up a half time appointment with Generation Challenge Programme, hosted at CGIAR CIMMYT, as SubProgramme Leader for SubProgramme 2- Genomics towards Gene Discovery.


In 2008, he was promoted to the position of Principal Scientist (Applied Genomics) at ICRISAT. Since then he has a dual appointment with ICRISAT as Principal Scientist and GCP as SubProgramme Leader. In 2010, he has been designated as Adjunct Professor in School of Plant Biology at The University of Western Australia.


Scientific contribution of Rajeev Varshney has been recognized at international level. For instance, at an early age, he started to serve Editorial Board of several journals like Theoretical and Applied Genetics, BMC Plant Biology, BMC Genetics, Molecular Breeding, Euphytica, Plant Breeding, Crop and Pasture Science(2009 onwards),Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization (2005 onwards), Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology (2008 onwards), The Plant Genome (2011 onwards). 

He has been a Guest Editor for Special Issue for several journals like Current Opinion in Plant Biology and Molecular Breeding.

Rajeev has served Steering Committee/ Organizing Committee/ Progarmme Committee for several international conferences including FAO Conference on Application of Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10). He is Chair of VI International Congress on Legume Genetics and Genomics.