Phytobiont and Ecosystem Restitution

Dr. Vivek Kumar is an Associate Professor working at the Himalayan School of Biosciences, Swami Rama Himalayan University, Jolly Grant, Dehradun, India. He currently serves on the editorial boards of various respected international journals, including Environment Asia, International Journal of Biological & Chemical Sciences, Environmental Sustainability, Journal of Advanced Botany and Zoology, and Journal of Ecobiotechnology. He is also a reviewer for prestigious international journals such as the Journal of Hazardous Materials, Environmental Sustainability, Science International, Acta Physiologiae Plantarum, Environment Science & Pollution Research, and Rhizosphere. He has authored more than 100 publications, including research papers, review articles, book chapters, and also edited several Springer books. Dr. Kumar has served as a microbiologist at the Department of Soil and Water Research, Public Authority of Agricultural Affairs & Fish Resources, Kuwait for eight years. He has been credited with first reporting and identification of Pink Rot inflorescence disease of date palms in Kuwait caused by Serratia marcescens. He was awarded the 2002 `Young Scientist Award' in Agricultural Microbiology by the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI). Dr. Kumar's research areas include plant-microbe interactions, environmental microbiology and bioremediation. He has also organized various outreach activities.

Dr. Manoj Kumar is an Associate Professor, Centre for Life Sciences, Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi, India. He is committed to high-quality science that contributes to both increasing intellectual knowledge of plant development and increasing the ecological niche. Dr. has pursued his PhD in Plant Biotechnology at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University and was then awarded two postdoctoral fellowships: i) DBT-PDF from IISc Bangalore in 2005 and then NRF-PDF from the Universities of Pretoria and Melbourne. He is leading a diverse research group in Life Sciences supported by DBT-BUILDER program, Ministry of Sciences and Technology, Govt of India. He referees for several journals, including Phytoremediation, and the Journal of Soil Sediments. Dr. Kumar's research focuses on the integration of microbial genetics with a range of plant physiological approaches to enable novel gene discovery and conferring of metabolites.

Dr. Ram Prasad is associated with Amity Institute of Microbial Technology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India. His research interests include plant-microbe interactions, sustainable agriculture and microbial nanobiotechnology. Dr. Prasad has written more than hundred publications, including research papers, review articles & book chapters. He has five patents issued or pending, and edited or authored several books. Dr. Prasad has twelve years of teaching experience and was awarded the Young Scientist Award (2007) & Prof. J.S. Datta Munshi Gold Medal (2009) by the International Society for Ecological Communications; FSAB fellowship (2010) by the Society for Applied Biotechnology; the American Cancer Society UICC International Fellowship for Beginning Investigators, USA (2014); Outstanding Scientist Award (2015) in the field of Microbiology by Venus International Foundation; BRICPL Science Investigator Award (ICAABT-2017) and Research Excellence Award (2018). Dr. Prasad served as Visiting Assistant Professor, Whiting School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, USA and is currently a Research Associate Professor at the School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.