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Prof. Om Parkash Dhankher

Professor in Crop Biotechnology
Stockbridge School of Agriculture
University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

Biography

Prof. Om Parkash Dhankherleads multidisciplinary research on plants to study fundamental questions in biology and address dire food security and food safety challenges facing the world—from reducing the prevalence of toxic metals in soil and food crops to developing climate resilient crops and sustainable nanobiotechnology. He is a most prolific and world leader in phytoremediation- a plants-based ‘green-clean technology’ for removing arsenic and other toxic metals from contaminated soil and water and simultaneously developing rice strains for limiting arsenic accumulation in grains. His pioneering research is critical for remediating the contaminated agricultural soils and returning those for agriculture production as well as to ensure the food safety for millions of people. His contributions to these research areas are enormous as he has published numerous outstanding and landmark publications in high impact journals including Nature, Nature Biotechnology, PNAS, Plant Cell. He published >125 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters papers, 5 edited books, and 5 international patents. His i10-index of 78 and h-index of 46 with over 7,300 citations put Dr. Dhankher in the list of top 2% of cited authors (Elsevier’s citation 2021 and 2022 reports) for journals in his discipline, indicating the impact and significance of his research.

Prof. Dhankher has been recognized with many national and international awards such as Fellow of the two largest international agriculture societies–Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and Agronomy Society of America (ASA), in addition to the selected Fellow of the International Society of Environmental Botanists (ISEB), and the Indian Society of Plant Physiology (ISPP), the highest honor that the professional societies bestowed upon their members. He is also the recipient of Haryana Gaurav Samman Award conferred by Haryana Government for his contribution to India, Haryana, and international education. He is an elected Vice President of the International Phytotechnology Society and also serving as the Editor and Associate Editor of six International journals.

Research Interest

  • Crop Improvements, Climate Resilient Crops
  • Engineering plants for detoxification and phytoremediation of heavy metals
  • Metabolic engineering of oil seed crop for increasing oil yields
  • Novel nanomaterials for sustainable agriculture