Biographical note

Javid A Parray is currently teaching at the Department of Environmental Science, GDC Eidgah, affiliated to Cluster University, Srinagar. His research interests include ecological and agricultural microbiology, climate change, microbial biotechnology, and environmental microbiomes. He has also done his Post Doctorate Research from the University of Kashmir. Dr Parray was also awarded a Fast Track Young Scientist Project by SERB – DST, GoI New Delhi. Dr Javid was also awarded as “Emerging scientist year Gold Medal” for the year 2018 by Indian Academy of Environmental Science. Dr Parray is the course coordinator for the UG- Programmes for CeC-MOOCS Swayam in Environmental Science. Dr Parray is an expert review member in the field of environmental science in the CSTT, Ministry of Education, GoI New Delhi. Dr Niraj Singh holds a master's degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and completed his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the Department of M.B.B.T, Tezpur University, Assam India. After completing his Ph.D. Degree, Dr. Niraj Singh started his teaching career at the Department of Botany, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya. India. He currently works at the Department of Microbiology, The Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam as an Assistant Professor & Coordinator/Head. His current area of research is R. solanacearum bacterial wilt disease in plants, Virulence gene function study of R. solanacearum, and its control in agronomically important crops. He has published quality research articles and book chapters. Dr. Niraj Singh was also awarded the Hayward-Prior Travel Award 2020 for Ralstonia solanacearum wilt research work, the Young Scientist Award, the Young Plant Pathologist Award, and the certificate of appreciation at Gujrat Vigyan Sammelan in 2022. Wen-Jun Li received his PhD in microbiology from Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is currently working as Distinguished Professor in School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. His research mainly focuses on microbial diversity under those unusual environments, by using culture-dependent and culture-independent methods, as well as mechanisms of extremophilic microbes to adapt those unusual environments. He was awarded the WFCC (The World Federation for Culture Collections) Skerman award for microbial taxonomy in 2007, and other six provincial and ministry level awards for his outstanding research contributions on the field of microbial systematics and microbial ecology. He has successfully trained more than 150 graduate students and postdoc level students in the field of microbial taxonomy and microbial ecology at home and abroad countries.