Biographical note

Vineet Kumar is currently a National Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Microbiology, School of Life Sciences at the Central University of Rajasthan, Rajasthan, India. He earned his Ph.D. in Environmental Microbiology from Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar (A Central) University, Lucknow, India, focusing on treatment of distillery effluent in two-step treatment system, towards environmental sustainability. Dr. Kumar’s research work has been mainly dedicated to wastewater treatment and solid waste management, focused on the valorization of agro‐industrial wastes for bioenergy production and development of sustainable approaches to mitigate the environmental impact of refractory pollutants discharged in wastewater and sludge. As a Postdoctoral fellow, he works on the role of biofilm-forming microbial community in situ and ex-situ remediation of pulp-paper mill waste. He has published more than 55 articles in peer-reviewed international journals of repute, 24 books, and 58 book chapters, on various aspects of science and engineering, with more than citations 3700, and h-index 36 (Google Scholar). Dr. Kumar has been serving as a guest editor and reviewer in more than 65 prestigious International Journals. He has served the editorial board of various reputed journals. He has been recognized among the top 2% of scientists worldwide from 2023 by Stanford University. He is an active member of numerous scientific societies including the Microbiology Society (UK), the Indian Science Congress Association (India), the Association of Microbiologists of India (India), etc. He serves as the President of the Society for Green Environment, India (website: www.sgeindia.org).

Pradeep Verma is working as a Professor in the Department of Microbiology, School of Life Sciences at Central University of Rajasthan, Rajasthan, India. He is a well-rounded researcher with more than 23 years of experience in leading, supervising, and undertaking research in the broader field of bioprocess and bioenergy production from lignocellulosic waste with a focus on waste management. He earned his PhD in Microbiology from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat, India in 2002. His research area of expertise involves microbial diversity, bioremediation, bioprocess development, and lignocellulosic and algal biomass-based biorefinery. He has more than 97 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals and contributed to more than 50 book chapters in different edited books with citations of more than 7725, h-index of 46 and i10-index of 115. He has also edited 22 books by international publishers such as Springer, Taylor and Francis CRC Press, and Elsevier. He also holds several National International patents in the field of microwave-assisted biomass pretreatment and bio-butanol production. He is a Guest editor to several journals such as Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery (Springer), Frontier in nanotechnology (Frontiers), and International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (MDPI). He is also an editorial board member for the Journal Current Nanomedicine (Bentham Sciences). He is acting as a reviewer for more than 50 journals in different publication houses such as Springer, Elsevier, RSC, ACS, Nature, Frontiers, MDPI, etc. He is also a recipient of various prestigious fellowships and awards such as the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) invitation and JSPS-Bridge Fellow Kyoto University, Japan (2007-2009, 2022) and Ron-Cockcroft award by the Swedish Society, Sweden, UNESCO Fellow ASCR Prague. He has been awarded Fellow Award, Mycological Society of India (MSI-Fellow, 2020), the Prof. P.C. Jain Memorial Award, Mycological Society of India 2020 and Fellow of Biotech Research Society, India (2021), The Distinction Fellow of the Academy of Microbiological Sciences (AMSc) and also Fellow of Association of Microbiologist of India, (AMI-Fellow, 2022) India, Young Scientist Award, Bioprocess for Sustainable Environment and Energy (YSA-2022) Fellow National Academy of Sciences, India (FNABS-2023), Fellow of Association of Fungal Biologist (FAFB-2024) and Fellow of International Academy of wood Science (FIAWS-2024),  He has been ranked in the Top 2% of scientists by Stanford University (2022, 2023) and also Top Scholar by Scholar GPS a California-based company in Bioprocess Engineering (2023).