Dr. Vijay Gopal Kakani is one of the two recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Agricultural Scientist Award. Dr. Kakani is the Warth and Sarkeys Distinguished Professor of Crops, Energy, and Climate in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at Oklahoma State University. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agronomy from Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University, and a doctoral degree in agriculture from the University of Reading in England. He has research experience across continents,… Read More

Dr. Devinder Sandhu is one of the two recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Agricultural Scientist Award. Dr. Sandhu finished his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as a gold medalist from Punjab Agricultural University and obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Dr. Sandhu then served as an Assistant Scientist at Iowa State University and subsequently as faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP). At UWSP, Dr. Sandhu received both the… Read More

Dr. Raju Bheemanahalli Rangappa, who grew up on his family’s farm in Bheemanahalli, Karnataka, India. He earned M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bengaluru, India, graduated as a gold medalist in Crop Physiology, one of the university’s highest academic honors. He went on to work at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines before completing post-doctorate research in Dr. Jagadish Krishna at Kansas State University.   Dr. Rangappa joined Mississippi State University as an assistant research… Read More

Dr. Sekaran received his Ph.D. in Soil Science from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. After that, he joined as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with Dr. Sandeep Kumar at South Dakota State University in December 2017. In June 2020, Dr. Sekaran joined Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Clemson University as a Research Specialist with Dr. Bhupinder Farmaha. In the past five years, his research focused on the impacts of different conservation practices on soil health indicators such… Read More

Aniruddha Maity is a Ph.D. candidate with Dr. Muthukumar Bagavathiannan at Texas A&M University, where he studies seed biology and ecology aspects of weeds at Texas A&M. He serves as an Agricultural Research Scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He received his B.Sc. from Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal and M.Sc. from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He is an active member of several science societies including the tri-societies, Weed… Read More