Punjab Agricultural University scientist bags prestigious national award

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 22

Dr Nitika Sandhu, who is working as a molecular geneticist at the School of Agricultural Biotechnology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), has been awarded the prestigious ‘Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award’ in the field of plant sciences for 2020 by the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI).

Dr Nitika has also been awarded one international and three national-funded competitive grant projects during the past two

years. Besides, she is a recipient of the Monsanto Beachell Borlaug International Scholarship.

After her PhD, she secured Asian Development Bank Post-Doctoral Fellowship and worked at the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines, before joining the PAU as a regular faculty.

Dr Nitika has pursued research on molecular breeding to unravel insights of stress-tolerances and is working towards the development of drought-tolerant rice varieties and direct-seeded adapted breeding lines.