Govind P RaoDr. Govind Pratap Rao is working as a Principal Scientist (Plant Pathology) at IARI, New Delhi. He did his M.Sc (Botany) and Ph.D. in Plant Virology from Gorakhpur University. He did Post doc at University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA with ProfR.E. Ford on Characterization of Sugarcane mosaic virus and Maize dwarf mosaic virus in 1994. Dr. Rao has 26 years of research experience on plant pathology specially on plant virology. Dr. Rao has worked on legume viruses, cucrbit viruses, sugarcane and cereal viruses and identified and characterized new pea and sugarcane viruses any many new phytoplasma diseases in India. He has published over 100 research publications and authored and edited nearly 17 books to his credit. He has also guided 3 MSc and 10 PhD students on different aspects of plant pathology. He has been worked in different capacities as Scientific Officer, Sr Scientific Officer (Pl Pathology), Head, Div Plant Pathology and Officer-in-Charge at Research Stations of UP Council of Sugarcane Research at Seorahi, Gorakhpur and Shahjahanpur since 1988 to 2010. He has been awarded several prestigious awards to his credit. The most important ones are: National Biotechnology Associateship Award (1991-1992) from Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India; Young Scientist Associateship Award (1994-1995) from DST, Govt. of India; Overseas BOYSCAST Associateship Award (1996) from DST, Govt. of India; President Award, Society for General Microbiology, UK 1998; Best U.P. Agriculture Scientist Award (UPCAR), Govt of Uttar Pradesh in 2002; Vigyan Ratna Award by CST, Govt. of UP for the year 2003-2004; Jin Xiu Qiu Award in 2006 by People's Govt. of Guangxi, Nanning, China. The Rao is Editor-in-Chief of Sugar Tech, international journal of sugar crops and related industries and Phytopathogenic Mollicutes, an international journal of phytoplasma, spiroplasma and phloem limited microorganisms. Dr. Rao is also Secretary of Indian Virological Society, New Delhi and member of prestigious scientific organization of Indian Phytopathological Society, American Phytopathological Society, American society of Mircrobiology, British Society of Plant Pathology, UK and many others. He is also Member of Pathology Committee of International Associations of Sugarcane Technologists (ISSCT), Mauritius (2004-2012) and International Phytoplasma Working group, Itlay. Besides, Dr. Rao has visited 27 countries as a visiting scientists, for invited talk, post doc fellow, research training, panel discussion and for attending workshop and conferences in USA, Australia, UK, France, Serbia, China, Singapore, Columbia, Reunion, France, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Thailand, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Finland, Norway and others. Read More Read Less