M. Iqbal R. Khan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and serves as Deputy Director of the Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD) at Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India. He also holds adjunct appointments at Korea University, Seoul, South Korea, and at The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Dr. Khan’s research focuses on major staple crops, particularly wheat, with the objective of reducing their susceptibility to environmental stress under projected future climatic conditions and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. His work addresses the challenges posed by environmental stressors to agricultural productivity, which remain a critical concern for global food and nutritional security. He has published over 100 research articles and has edited several books and authored multiple book chapters with leading publishers. He has an established citation record, as reflected in widely used bibliometric indicators. Dr. Khan has been recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in the Animal and Plant Science category and has been listed among the top 2% of scientists globally by Elsevier and Stanford University (2021–25). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), in Plant and Agricultural Sciences, and a recipient of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Young Associates award (2024). His accolades include the R.H. Dastur Gold Medal Award—ISPP (2023), the Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award—NASI (2021), and the Young Scientist Award—ISPP (2018). He serves on the editorial boards of many renowned journals, including Plant and Soil, Journal of Plant Growth Regulation, 3-Biotech, and Plant Physiology Reports. He has also served as a guest editor for Agriculture, Frontiers in Plant Science, Sustainability, and Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. Dr. Noushina Iqbal is currently working as SERB-National Post-Doctoral Fellow in Jamia Hamdard, India. During her PhD, she received the UGC-BSR Fellowship for meritorious student and worked on an UP-CST funded research project. She also got the prestigious Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) by CSIR. She has more than 30 peer reviewed international publications and has authored 1 book and edited 3 books. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of hormonal regulation of plant growth with special emphasis on photosynthesis under abiotic stress. The mechanistic approach applied by nutrients and signaling molecules under varied environmental stress is her priority. She deals with crosstalk between hormones for the modulation of nutrient-use efficiency, source-sink relation and abiotic stress tolerance. Dr. Péter Poór is an assistant professor, who has been leading the Plant Stress Physiology and Photosynthesis Research Group at the Department of Plant Biology of the University of Szeged, Hungary since 2017. His main research area is the investigation of plant defense hormones, and a better understanding of plant defense mechanisms, especially in the dark. As a result of his work, he has published more than 80 international scientific publications to date, to which he has received more than 1,000 citations. In addition to his research work, he participates in the lecturer activities of the Department of Plant Biology, including the teaching of plant cell biology, plant anatomy, photosynthesis, and plant stress physiology. His teaching activities were twice recognized with the Golden Chalk Award based on student votes. In addition, he is an active organizer of university public life, as well as takes part in a wide range of scientific dissemination activities and science organization activities. He is the secretary of the Hungarian Free Radical Research Society and a member of the Hungarian Plant Biology Society. He is also a member of the editorial boards of several international journals (e.g. Frontiers in Plant Science, Journal of Plant Growth Regulation). In 2019, he won the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Science Academy. In 2018, he received the first prize in the Lecture Series of Young Plant Biologists of the Hungarian Plant Biology Society. Antonio Ferrante holds a PhD in advanced technologies in horticultural science from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa Italy. He was a visiting researcher at the University California, Davis, and a visiting teaching professor with ERASMUS program in Cardiff University (2015) and Almeria University (2017) and has been a member of the scientific committee of several international conferences. He has authored more than 200 international publications in peer-reviewed journals.
