Dr Avtar K. Handa

Dr Avtar K. Handa (2018)
Senior Professor at the University of Purdue, USA Dr Avtar Krishan Handa received undergraduate degree from Punjab University, Chandigarh, M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh and Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. He did his postdoctoral trainings at Michigan State University and Purdue University, USA. Dr Handa started his professional journey at Assistant Professor at the University of Purdue and thereafter rose to different senior ranks. His research area comprises of improvement of fruit quality and shelf-life, neutraceautical and antioxidant rich vegetables. He developed tomato genotypes with enhanced processing traits and higher phyto-nutrients. His contributions in basic sciences includes role of cyclic nucleotides in plant growth, identifications and characterisation of water and salt stress related proteins including osmotin, molecular processes related with fruit ripening and basic research on plant polyamines. Dr Handa published over 100 peer reviewed research publications in journals and authored over 32 books. He is one of the highly cited authors having 10,000 citations with H-index of 47 to his credit. He is widely travelled all over the globe and continues to work on postharvest bilogy and improvement of shelf-life and quality of horticultural crops.