Advisory Board and Editors Agricultural Science
Anna K. Croft
Professor at Loughborough University, specialising in biological chemistry, reaction mechanisms, and ionic liquids.
Rex Victor Cruz
Rex Victor O. Cruz, PhD is a full professor and UP Scientist III at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). He obtained his bachelor and masteral degrees in forestry at UPLB and his doctoral degree at the University of Arizona.
His specialization include forestry, watershed management, environmental management, ecosystem and landscape management, upland development and climate change.
He is a former dean of the CFNR (2007-2011) and Chancellor of UPLB (2011-2014). He was also a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1992-1995; 1997-2000; and 2004-2007. Currently he is a member of the Asia Pacific Forestry Network Board of Directors and on the Editorial Board of several journals. He is also the Program and Project Leader of MODECERA (Monitoring and Detection of Ecosystem Changes for Resiliency and Adaptation), INWARD (Integrated Watershed Research and Development Project), and National Conservation Farming Village (CFV) Program.
G. Christopher Cutler
Professor and Associate Dean Research, Dalhousie University
Interests in Agricultural Entomology and Ecotoxicology
Piotr Dąbrowski
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Improvement, Warsaw University of Life Sciences. The influence of habitat factors (with special emphasis on light, drought, salt and PAH’ contamination etc.) on the status and the development of plants and unicellular organism is the basic interest that affected the scope of my research activity. In my career I focused on determination of photosynthetic apparatus responses by chlorophyll fluorescence (prompt fluorescence, delayed fluorescence) and gas exchange analysis.
Saurav Das
Dr. Saurav Das is a soil scientist with expertise in soil health, soil carbon, microbial ecology, and sustainable agriculture. He serves as the Research Director of the Farming Systems Trial at Rodale Institute, where his work focuses on understanding the intersection of soil management, plant health, and ecosystem services in organic and regenerative farming systems. Dr. Das has published extensively on topics such as biogeochemistry of carbon and nitrogen, soil health, soil carbon, microbial community dynamics, and the integration of data-driven approaches in agricultural research. He is committed to advancing sustainable practices that balance productivity and environmental health.
Janendra De Costa
Janendra De Costa is the Senior Professor and Chair of Crop Science at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. In his research, Prof. De Costa explores the interactions between plants and their environment. In particular, he is interested in unravelling the influence of climate on the functioning (i.e. physiology) of plants, their growth and productivity. His research has spanned across a range of agricultural crops in agro-ecosystems and natural plant species in forest ecosystems, with a special focus on climate change and its impacts on agricultural crops and tropical rainforests, their climate and soils. Prof. De Costa’s research has been predominantly empirical, strongly based on quantitative observations in the field and data analysis to build relationships, with a limited amount of simulation modelling and molecular biology.
As part of his interactions with the wider scientific community at the national level, Prof. De Costa takes an interest in policy formulation and funding for scientific research and development. He has served in national level research funding agencies, policy formulating bodies, editorial boards, governing boards and research monitoring and evaluation committees of national agencies. Currently, he functions as the Chairperson of the Consultative Committee for Research of the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka and is a member of the governing board of the Sugarcane Research Institute of Sri Lanka. As part of his social responsibility as a scientist, Prof. De Costa writes regularly to national newspapers on topical issues with a view to increasing scientific literacy and awareness among the general public.
Nathalie Diagne
Dr. Nathalie Diagne is a Researcher at the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research in Senegal.
Her primary expertise includes, Plant Biotechnology, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Agriculture, and Plant Biology.
Douglas S Domingues
I am an Assistant Professor in Plant Molecular Genetics at the "Luiz de Queiroz" College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, Brazil. My main interests are devoted to understanding gene and genome evolution in plants, working on genome-wide analyses, including transcriptional analyses of gene families relevant to plant metabolism, RNA-seq analyses in plants, as well as studies on non-coding RNAs and transposable elements.
Tushar K. Dutta
I am a Senior Scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, involved in pursuing basic and applied research in the field of Nematology and Entomology.
As an alternative to Bt Cry toxins for insect pest management, a number of novel bacterial protein toxins (Txp40, TcaB) derived from an insect-parasitic bacterium Photorhabdus akhurstii (symbiont of nematode Heterorhabditis indica) were characterized. The mode of action and pathogenesis process of these toxins were investigated in different lepidopteran insects including Galleria mellonella, Helicoverpa armigera, Spodoptera litura and S. exigua. The potential receptor proteins and their binding sites for these toxins were unravelled from the insect midgut epithelial cells.
My other research interests include molecular basis of plant-nematode interaction. Using RNAi, functional analysis of several plant parasitism processes was deciphered including the role of Mi-cpl-1 in metabolic process, FLP and NLP neuropeptides in neuromusculation process, ODR and TAX proteins in chemotaxis process, cell wall degrading enzymes and various MSP effectors in infection process of plant nematodes. I have contributed in understanding the genetic basis of nematode resistance in rice via genome-wide association mapping coupled with omics-driven strategies. I am currently pursuing genome editing research for developing nematode resistance by adopting CRISPR-Cas9 strategy in Arabidopsis, rice and tomato.
Mohamed A. El-Esawi
Dr. Mohamed A. El-Esawi is Professor at Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Egypt. Dr. El-Esawi received his BSc and MSc from Tanta University, and his Ph.D. degree from Dublin Institute of Technology, Technological University Dublin, Ireland. After obtaining his Ph.D., Dr. El-Esawi joined the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, University of Sorbonne in France, University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium and University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom as a visiting research fellow. His research focuses on genetics, molecular biology, environmental health and safety, environmental stress, biotechnology, molecular physiology, developmental biology, and bioinformatics. He has authored more than 150 international peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, books, and patents, and has participated in more than 70 conferences and workshops worldwide. Dr. El-Esawi has received several grants and international awards and recognition, including the Plants 2021 Young Investigator Award (MDPI, Switzerland). He has been ranked among the world's top 2% Scientists by Stanford University in USA, and is currently involved in several research projects.
Jurgen Engelberth
Dr. Jurgen Engelberth has a Ph.D. in plant physiology from the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. After working at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and at USDA, ARS, CMAVE in Gainesville, FL, he joined the biology faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He is currently an Associate Professor for plant biochemistry. He is an Associate Editor for Plant Signaling and Behavior and Plants. His work is focussed on plant-plant interactions by volatiles signals in response to biotic and abiotic stresses.
Ana E Escalante
Dr. Ana E. Escalante, a PhD in microbial ecology and evolution, has extensively studied microbial diversity and evolution in natural and engineered ecosystems. Since 2011, she has been at the National Laboratory of Sustainability Sciences (LANCIS), focusing on sustainability, particularly its implications for public policy and ecosystem management. With >50 scientific articles, numerous supervised theses, and teaching roles in multiple graduate programs. Since 2020 she serves as director of the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).