Professor (Dr) Ranbir Chander Sobti, Former Education Consultant Governor of Bihar, Senior Scientist (Indian National Science Academy), Former Vice Chancellor, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow (UP), and Panjab University, Chandigarh, is, indeed, a polymath—a renowned academician, distinguished scientist, dynamic administrator and a visionary gifted with an immensely optimistic disposition and integrity of character, words and action. He has published more than 350 high-impact research publications, about 50 plus chapters in books, 45 books and 23 sponsored research projects.Professor Sobti is a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), National Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academies of Medical Sciences and Agricultural Sciences and of the Canadian Academy of Cardiovascular Diseases and is associated with many other academic associations and institutions in the domain of higher education and research. The litany of honours showered on him includes, among others, the INSA Young Scientist Medal (1978), UGC Career Research Award, Punjab Rattan Award, JC Bose Oration Award and the Life Time Achievement Award of the Punjab Academy of Sciences, Zoological Society of India and the Environment Academy of India, besides many other medals and awards of various reputed national and international organizations. As a protean public intellectual, Professor Sobti is a remarkable leader in the domain of science/scientific knowledge—both in theory and practice. In recognition of his enormous contribution to higher education, he has been bestowed with a large number of prestigious awards and medals which adorn his academic and professional career. The Government of India bestowed upon him the honour of ‘PADMASHRI’ in 2009 by way of rightfully acknowledging his great contribution to higher education in India. On 2 July 2016, he was also honoured with ‘Bharat Gaurav’, Life Time Achievement Award at the House of Commons, British Parliament, London, U.K. He had been General President of Indian Science Congress in the session 101. He is a widely travelled scientist.Prof. Kuhad is Chairman/Member of Executive Council/Academic Council/Court/Governing Board of various universities, UGC and NAAC. In the past, he has also served as a member of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and a member of Executive Council and Governing Body of UGC NAAC. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Microbiological Sciences (FAMSc), Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences India (FNASc), Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (FNAAS) and Fellow of Biotech Research Society (FBRS). He has also served as a Professor at the University of Delhi and as Vice-Chancellor at Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh. He is the Founder Chairman of the Indian Academy of Microbiological Sciences and has served as the Joint Director of the Institute of Life Long Learning (ILLL), University of Delhi. He has also been the General Secretary (2004–2010) and President (2011–2012) of the Association of Microbiologists of India. He is an editor/associate editor of various journals. He is the recipient of prestigious awards and recognitions, a few of which are life time achievement awards, AMI (2019), the prestigious Prof. G. S. Rangaswamy Memorial Award (Biennial) (2017), Dr. G. B. Manjrekar Award (2014), AMI-Platinum Jubilee Life Time Achievement Award (2013), AMI-Titan Biotech Award (2011), Short Term Biotechnology Overseas Research Associateship Award (2002–03), AMI- Alembic Award (1999), Biotechnology Long Term Overseas Research Associateship Award (1995–96), UNIDO/ICGEB Fellowship (1994) and Commonwealth Scholarship for Post-Doctoral Research Prof. Rup Lal is presently the INSA Senior Scientist at Acharya Narendra Dev College, Delhi University. He is the Fellow of Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Academy of Microbiological Sciences. Presently, he is also the Senior Ambassador of Indian region for ISME (International Society for Microbial Ecology), The Netherlands and Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS). He is also the Advisor to IMiLI-SAC (International Microbial Literacy Initiative-South Asia Center) to spearhead the microbial literacy campaign in India as well as Abroad. He has over 40 years of teaching, administrative and research experience in the area of microbial diversity, genomics and metagenomics. He has supervised 75 PhD thesis and trained more than 150 UG/PG students. He has over 250 publications in peer-reviewed journals with 9147 ISI citations & h-index 47. He has delivered more than 300 lectures in the area of Biotechnology, Microbiology, Genomics, and Metagenomics at various national and international platforms. Professor Lal is the recipient of several prestigious fellowships including the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany), DBT Overseas Fellowship and Indo-US-ASM Professorship in Microbiology, Endeavour executive fellowship (2018-2019), Moselio Schaechter Distinguished Service Award from American Society for Microbiology and many more Prof. (Mrs.) Praveen Rishi is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Panjab University Chandigarh. She has also been the Dean, Faculty of Science, Panjab University. She is also the President of the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI). Dr. Rishi has to her credit 150 research publications in international and national journals of high repute. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Microbiological Sciences (FAMSc) as well as of the Indian Association of Biomedical Sciences (FABMS). She has also been the recipient of DBT overseas Associateship, INSA Visiting Fellowship and Dr. Y.S. Narayana Oration Award by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi. Recently she has been awarded the Prof. S.R. Vyas Memorial Awardas well by the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI).
