Biographical note

Dr. Jastin Samuel (PhD) is working as Assistant Professor leading waste valorization research lab at Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India. He has more than a decade experience in R&D. He has been an active part of DST, EU-DBT, and CSIR-funded projects. He was awarded the prestigious CSIR-SRF fellowship in Engineering (ENG42) in 2013. Along with his team, he has developed lab-scale mine wastewater treatment system for opencast mines at Orissa, India; established ETP tertiary treatment facility for two industries (sugar industry and distillery industry) with reuse and business proposition in Andhra Pradesh, India, that is, approved by CPCB; established a water treatment facility at Pondicherry in PPP mode with the State Government. He is presently working on pathway assessment and mitigation of Micro and Nano-plastics. He has been a member of review boards of various journals and conferences in India and abroad. Dr. Ajay Kumar is currently working as an assistant professor at Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Noida, India. Dr. Kumar recently completed his tenure as a visiting scientist from Agriculture Research Organization, Volcani Center, Israel. He has published more than 175 research, review articles, and book chapters in international and national journals. He serves as an associate editor for Frontiers in Microbiology and as guest editor for various journals such as Plants, Microorganisms, and Sustainability. Dr. Kumar has also edited more than 32 books with the leading publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley. Dr. Kumar’s research experience is in the field of plant–microbe interactions, postharvest management, cyanobacterial biology, and so on. Prof. Joginder Singh is a Professor at the Department of Botany, Nagaland University, Lumami, Nagaland, India. Previously, he worked as a Professor in the School of Bioengineering and Biosciences, Lovely Professional University and also as a Young Scientist at Microbial Biotechnology and Biofertilizer Laboratory, Department of Botany, Jai Narain Vyas University on a research project funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He is an active member of various scientific societies and organizations, including the Association of Microbiologists of India, the Indian Society of Salinity Research Scientists, the Indian Society for Radiation Biology, and the European Federation of Biotechnology. He has published extensively with Elsevier and Springer both in journals and books. He serves as a reviewer for many prestigious journals, including Current Research in Engineering, Science and Technology; Journal of Cleaner Production; Science of the Total Environment; Environmental Monitoring and Assessment; Pedosphere; Soil and Sediment Contamination; Symbiosis; International Journal of Phytoremediation; Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety; Annals of Agricultural Sciences; and Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.