Dr. Riti Thapar Kapoor is Associate Professor in Centre for Plant and Environmental Biotechnology, Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, India. Dr. Kapoor has seventeen years of teaching and research experience and her area of specialization is environmental biotechnology, bioremediation, wastewater treatment and abiotic stresses. Dr. Kapoor has published 15 books and over 115 research papers in various journals of national and international repute. Dr. Kapoor has visited 8 countries for participation in different academic programmes. Dr. Kapoor has received prestigious travel award from Bill & Melinda Gates Research Foundation under CGIAR project for participation in International training programme held at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila, Philippines in 2010. She is also recipient of DST travel grant for participation in International Conference held at Sri Lanka in 2013. Dr. Kapoor has been awarded with Teacher’s Research Fellowship from Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru in 2019. She has supervised and mentored a number of research projects sanctioned by different government funding agencies such as DAE, DST and UPCST. Dr. Mohd Rafatullah is currently working as an Associate Professor of Environmental Chemistry at the University Centre for Research and Development, Chandigarh University, India. Prior to this, he served at the School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia, where he held the positions of Postdoctoral Fellow, Senior Lecturer, and Associate Professor. His research interests include environmental water pollutants and their safe removal; synthesis of nanomaterials for environmental protection; water and wastewater treatment; adsorption and ion exchange; microbial fuel cells; advanced oxidation processes; and the electrochemical properties of activated carbons. His scientific contributions have been recognized through invitations to serve as Guest Editor and Editorial Board Member for various scientific journals. He has been listed among the World's Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University, and among the Top 1% of peer reviewers in Chemistry, Environmental Science, and Cross-Field categories on Publons (Web of Science). He has published numerous review articles and original research papers in internationally reputed journals, and has presented his work at various national and international conferences. Additionally, he has participated in several workshops and seminars focused on environmental chemistry. Based on my research performance, he has accumulated over 13,500 citations and an h-index of 52 (as per Scopus). Dr. Aseem Vashisht is an Associate Professor at the University Centre for Research and Development, Chandigarh University, overseeing research operations and advancing academic and innovation initiatives. With over 9 years of experience in academia, research, and science policy, he has qualified prestigious national-level exams, including CSIR-UGC NET (Rank 44) and GATE (Rank 265). He has authored 23 peer-reviewed international publications, with an h-index of 8 and 275+ citations. Dr. Vashisht has held several impactful roles. As Project Officer at the Chandigarh Region Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC), Panjab University, he coordinated innovation-focused projects and institutional collaborations. Following his Ph.D., he joined the University of Ladakh as Assistant Professor (Physics) in the Department of Forensic Science, where he secured major research grants from BARC and MeitY. He also served as NSS Program Coordinator and contributed to establishing the Ladakh Region Knowledge Cluster. At the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology, as a Senior Project Associate, he worked on grassroots innovation policy and collaborated with the IPR team to enhance Punjab’s intellectual property ecosystem.
