Prof. Ramesh C. Ray, Ph.D., is an agriculture and food microbiologist, author, editor, and is currently serving as an adjunct professor in industrial biotechnology at Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (SOA), deemed to be a University, Bhubaneswar, India. He is a former distinguished member of the Agricultural Research Service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, and Head of the Regional Centre, ICAR–Central Tuber Crops Research Institute at Bhubaneswar, India. Dr. Ray has over 45 years of research experience in agriculture, food, and industrial microbiology. He has published more than 200 research and scientific articles, 100 book chapters, edited and co-edited 30 books, and co-authored three books. Dr. Ray was a visiting professor and scientist at several universities and research institutes in India and abroad, and a consultant on sweet potato with the International Potato Center (CIP), Peru, stationed in India. He was a guest faculty member in Applied Microbiology at Utkal University, India, from 2000 to 2010. Dr. Ray is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, and the National Academy of Biological Sciences, Chennai, India. His name is included among the top 2% of scientists in the world (in the year 2020-2024) in the database prepared by Stanford University.Dr. Gargi Ghoshal, Ph.D., is a Professor at Dr. S.S. Bhatnagar University Institute of Chemical Engineering & Technology, Panjab University, Chandigarh (India). She has been teaching Food Technology since 2004 with a specialization in Nutraceutical and Functional Foods. She did her B.Tech. and M.Tech. in Food Technology & Biochemical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and PhD in Food Technology from Panjab University, Chandigarh (India). She has Industrial experience of 3.5 years in Tilda Rice Land Pvt. Ltd., Gurgaon (India). She has completed different research projects from funding agencies like AICTE, ICAR, DST, Government of India. Her field of specialization is the Utilization of Agro-industrial Waste and its Value Addition: Extraction of plant pigment, antioxidants, and bioactive compounds, its entrapment in different processes, micro/nanoencapsulation, and its application in food processing, development of cereal technology or pseudocereal based bakery processing, effect of different additives on bakery processing, multi-Grain products, development of active packaging incorporating agro-industrial byproducts and its application. She has more than 90 national and international publications in reputed journals and book chapters. Six students have completed PhD, 40 students have completed their post-graduate dissertations, and six Post-graduate and PhD students are currently working with her.Prof. Hrudayanath Thatoi, Ph.D., currently serves as the Director of the Centre for Industrial Biotechnology Research (CIBR) at Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan, a Deemed-to-be University in Bhubaneswar. Previously, Prof. Thatoi served as Chairman of the P.G. Council at Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo University (MSCBU), Baripada, and as a Professor and Head of the Department of Biotechnology at MSCBU. He has also worked as a mangrove biologist and Senior Scientist at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai. Prof. Thatoi obtained his M.Sc., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Utkal University and has been serving as a faculty member in biotechnology since 2004. His teaching and research interests include molecular biology, industrial and pharmaceutical biotechnology, and microbiology. To date, Prof. Thatoi has published 25 books, including two textbooks, and more than 370 research papers in national and international journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters. He has also been awarded two patents. His research impact is reflected in his Google Scholar citations (11,847), h-index (54), and i10-index (137). Prof. Thatoi received the Samanta Chandra Sekhar Award in Life Science in 2021. He has also been recognized as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University, USA.
