Advisory Board and Editors Agricultural Science
Kirankumar S. Mysore
Professor of Plant Biology at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK, USA. Adjunct professor at the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.
Sushma Naithani
Sushma Naithani is an Associate Professor Senior Research in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University, USA. The current focus of her research is on understanding information flow in living systems and how evolution shapes this flow using systems-level pathway modeling supported by high-quality biocuration, gene-orthology-based predictions, and analysis of omics data. She serves as a senior curator for the Plant Reactome knowledgebase. Sushma has authored 31 peer-reviewed refereed research articles in high-impact journals, including Nature, Nature Biotech, PNAS, etc. One of her research papers has been selected by the 'Faculty of 1000 Biology'. In addition, she has authored six book chapters and one Open Textbook (S. Naithani (2021): History and Science of Cultivated Plants published by Oregon State University Open Educational Resources, EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-955101-08-0, available at https://open.oregonstate.education/cultivatedplants). She is also an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science-Plant Biotechnology and served as the Editor-in-chief of the Current Plant Biology (2017-2023).
Shahla Nargis
Dr. Shahla Nargis, Former Ph.D. Scholar at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Former Research Scholar at Michigan State University, USA. Currently, Working in Sichuan Agricultural University, China.
Lee Chuen Ng
Dr. Lee Cheung Ng is an Associate Professor within the School of Food Science and Technology at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. She obtained her Ph.D in Plant Pathology from Universiti Putra Malaya in 2012 and her M.Sc in Bio-industry from Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2004. Dr. Ng's research interests include Plant Pathology and Agriculture Microbiology.
Franco Nigro
Full Professor of Plant Pathology at the Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences of the University of Bari - Aldo Moro. He holds the courses "Biotechnology for the Health and Safety of Vegetable Production integrated with the Certification of Agri-food Production" (Master's Degree in Biotechnology for Food Quality and Safety), and the module of Phytopathological Bacteriology (Bachelor Degree in Agricultural Science and Technology). The research activity focus on some relevant diseases of olive trees (quick decline syndrome, verticillium wilt, anthracnose, cercosporiosis), citrus fruits (Phytophthora root rot, and “mal secco” diseases), stone fruit (white root rot). Recently, he also reported the occurrence of Candidatus Phytoplasma phoenicium, a quarantine pathogen of the almond tree, in Apulia.
Nikolaos Nikoloudakis
Dr. Nikolaos Nikoloudakis is an Assistant Professor at the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). He graduated (2002) from the Agricultural Biotechnology Department of the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA) and has a MSc in the field of plant biotechnology (2005). He obtained his PhD at the Plant Breeding and Biometry Laboratory (AUA) caring out research involving phylogenetic relationships of Avena species and the study of intergenomic modifications using interspecific hybrids of different ploidy levels (2009). Furthermore, he was a post-doc researcher and a special teaching staff at the Department of Agricultural Sciences, Biotechnology and Food Science (ABF) of the Cyprus University of Technology (2017-2022). He has also served as a technical manager of the national reference laboratories of the Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food, regarding GMO detection in seed lots and the control of pathogenic viruses in plant reproductive material (2011-2016). He has contributed to the formation of research networks as a partner from CUT in several national and European projects and participates in several funded research projects (Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, Prima, RIF and ECPGR). His main research interests are agricultural biotechnology, plant genetic resources, genotyping, and flow cytometry.
Fabio TS Nogueira
Associate professor of Plant Molecular Biology and coordinator of the graduate program Plant Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. President, Institutional Biosafety Committee, University of Sao Paulo; Past President, Environmental Ethics in Research Committee, University of Sao Paulo.
Ali Noman
Dr. Ali Noman received his PhD from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China. His research and teaching interests include plant-environment Interaction, plant immune responses, and plant survival tactics under changing environments. Currently He serves as an Assistant Professor of Botany at the Government College University, Faisalabad.
He has published many papers in peer reviewed and world renowned journals, such as Science of the Total Environment, Environmental Pollution, Environmental and Experimental Botany, Chemosphere, Environmental Research and many international conferences. Dr. Noman also serves as member of editorial boards and editor for different journals.
Charles Odilichukwu R Okpala
Charles Odilichukwu R. Okpala is a Certified Food Scientist (CFS) - International Food Science Certification Commission (IFSCC-USA), Chartered Scientist (CSci) of the Science Council-UK, Fellow - Linnaean Society of London (FLS), Fellow - Institute of Food Science and Technology (FIFST-UK), Member - International Association of Food Protection (MIAFP-USA), Member - Institution of Agricultural Engineers (MIAgrE-UK), Professional Engineer (PEng-UK), Member - The Federalist Society (USA), among others. Charles' first college education was in Statistics and Computer Applications (CertDiplom, 2002) at the University of Nigeria Nsukka - Nigeria, followed by Agriculture (B.Sc. Hons, 2008) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana. Subsequently, he underwent specialist food science research training (Master of Research [MRES], 2010) at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow-UK, and during that period, undertook chemical engineering training under the European Federation of Chemical Engineers at Koc Universitesi-Istanbul, Turkey(Intensive Lifelong Learning Diploma - Chemical Engineering with distinction, 2009). He recently accomplished an advanced specialist food nutrition technology research training at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences(UPWr), Wrocław-Poland (Dyplom Doktorski, Ph.D., 2023). He holds an excess of 75 other credentials, for example, Diplomas in Legal Studies, Social Work Studies, Psychology, Workplace Safety & Health, as well as certifications like FSPCA Preventive Controls for Human Food(USA); HACCP Meat & Poultry(USA); HACCP Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Packinghouse(USA); ServSafe® Instructor/Registered Examination Proctor(National Restaurant Association-USA); ServSafe® Food Protection Manager(National Restaurant Association-USA); Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) Train-the-Trainer (Association of Food and Drug Officials, USA); etc. Currently, he is a County Extension Agent at Assistant Professor cadre (Family & Consumer Science) - University of Georgia Cooperative Extension (Richmond County Office), College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia- Athens, USA, and before, Research Scholar - Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław-Poland. Previously held at other notable institutions include Research Fellow at IRBIM CNR (previously known as IAMC CNR) Mazara del Vallo, Trapani-Italy (2015-2016), and Research Scholar (School of Science, 2011-2013)/Research Associate (Global Public Health Unit, 2012-2013) at Monash University Sunway Campus, Malaysia. Adding to being an Extension Educator and Subject Matter Specialist, he freely lends his expertise as an Independent Academic-Research Practice Consultant, Lead Internal Quality Assurer, and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Practitioner, among others. He has over 150 scholarly works in very promising ISI impact factor journals, with over 3000 Google Scholar citations, and over h-index of 25. In addition to being an academic/associate editor with some Scopus-indexed journals, he also serves as a scientific reviewer for over 45 others. He delivered posters/presentations at regional/state/international conferences/seminars. Adding to being a proud Strathclyder, Charles' interests include the following: utilization of animal products in sustainable global food systems; family consumer sciences/extension services; agri-food processing/production/quality; consumer safety/food protection; foodservice industries and their personnel development; environmental public health/epidemiology; qualitative and quantitative research methods; quality management of agrifood products/socio-related aspects of foods. Most essentially, Charles trusts Almighty God to lead him in academic, administrative, and vocational endeavors. Additionally, he is extremely passionate and zealous about ensuring colleagues/students, and community members strive to achieve, excel, and succeed.
Brenda Oppert
EDUCATION
University of Texas at El Paso (9/75-8/78), B.S. in Biology, 1978
University of Texas at El Paso (1/83-12/86), M.S. in Biology, 1986
Kansas State University (8/86-5/91), Ph.D. in Biochemistry, 1991
PROFESSIONAL
• Research Molecular Biologist (GS-15), CGAHR, Manhattan, KS (4/91-present)
• Adjunct Professor, Department of Entomology, Kansas State University (1/99-present)
Juan E. Palomares-Rius
My scientific career has been developed in the field of Plant Protection, mainly in plant-parasitic nematodes and how these organisms interact with the plants and other microorganisms in the soil in order to design effective Integrated Management in the agrosystem. Plant-parasitic nematodes could be a major limiting biological constrains for many crops. I have developed five main research lines during my scientific career: i) Study of the interaction plant-nematodes including the plant resistance characterization; ii) Integrative diagnostics and molecular characterization of plant-parasitic nematode species (including description of new species and group phylogenies). This subject has been done with genera as important as Meloidogyne, Pratylenchus, Xiphinema or Longidorus among others; iii) Soil ecological relationships in order to understand the nematode biodiversity; iv) Genetic population structure and molecular diversity of nematodes and plant-viruses vectored by nematodes; v) Genome sequencing and analysis. Nowadays I am working in the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture-CSIC (Spain) in order to unravel the diversity and new control methods against plant-parasitic nematodes in crops.
Renu Pandey
Dr. Renu Pandey is Principal Scientist at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. The focus of her team is on mineral nutrition of crop plants, exploring the physiological and molecular mechanisms, and identifying superior ‘donors’ and ‘traits’ for nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency in crops such as rice, wheat, maize, soybean, mungbean, and sesame. The functional characterization of uncharacterized genes identified from leaf proteome which were differentially expressed during foliar absorption of iron, and from root proteome in response to phosphorus starvation in soybean is underway. The interaction between nutrients and other abiotic stresses like drought, high temperature, and CO2 are also under investigation. In the area of genomics of plant nutrition, Dr. Pandey's team are conducting genome-wide and candidate gene association studies for phosphorus and nitrogen use efficiency in wheat and rice. Her lab is fully equipped to carry out physiological, biochemical, and molecular studies with the facility for field phenotyping using handheld instruments, and hydroponics system.