M.R. Shylaja received her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Horticulture from Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), Thrissur, India. Prof. Shylaja has 34 years of service at KAU. She served in the capacity of Director of Education, KAU & KAU- ICAR Education Nodal Officer. She also headed the Department of Plant Biotechnology (Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology), College of Horticulture, KAU. Her areas of specialization include biotech breeding, commercial micropropagation, genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. She handled many externally aided research projects funded by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), DBT-BIRAC, Department of Science and Technology, Kerala State Council for Science, Technology & Environment, Mission for Integrated Development in Horticulture and Government of Kerala. She also officiated as Project Coordinator of Biotechnology, Biochemistry and Physiology at KAU. She was also the course co-ordinator for the DBT- HRD programme in M.Sc (Ag) Plant Biotechnology. She has 105 research publications in reputed National & International journals and in proceedings of National/ International seminar/ workshops, three books and several book chapters. Prof. Shylaja is the recipient of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Award instituted by Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi for her outstanding doctoral research in Horticulture in the year 1997. Her student also bagged the same prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Award in the year 2007 for outstanding doctoral research in Horticulture. Prof. Shylaja has released three ginger varieties using biotechnological tools and received provisional Indian patent for the product developed in a DBT-BIRAC project undertaken in PPP mode at KAU in 2018. She is member in several professional societies.Deepu Mathew received his Masters and Doctorate in Horticulture with specialization in Vegetable Science from University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, India. Subsequently he joined Defence Research and Development Organization as Scientist-B and concentrated the research in vegetable breeding for cold tolerance at Defence Institute of High Altitude Research. He did the first post-doctoral research at The Volcani Centre, Israel on Characterization of FT and gaLFY genes in garlic and second post-doctoral research at Purdue University, USA on Genome Wide Association Studies on inflorescence architecture in maize. From 2005, Dr. Mathew is working as Assistant Professor at Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, India. At Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology, KAU, he is working in horticultural crop genomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics. So far he has published 83 research papers in reputed national and international journals, 8 books, 13 book chapters and edited three books. Dr. Mathew is a Fellow of Indian Society for Plant Physiology, Associate of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, Member of National Academy of Sciences, India and Secretary of NASI Kerala Chapter.K.V. Peter is an alumnus of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar. He did Post doctoral research at Vegetable Laboratory, USDA Beltsville and at AVRDC (World Vegetable Centre, Taiwan. He was Professor of Horticulture at Kerala Agricultural University from 1979. He authored and edited several books published by Elsevier, CRC, NBT, Kerala Language Institute, Astral Publishing, NIPA New Delhi and Brillion Publishing. His students now occupy important positions in research, teaching and administration. He is recipient of several national and international awards including Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award and VEGENET. He is currently President, National Academy of Sciences, Prayagraj Kerala Chapter, President Indian Society of Vegetable Science, Varanasi and Trustee, Federal Aswas Trust, Aluva. He is currently Chairman, RAC, ICAR-CPRI Shimla, Member, RAC, ICAR-IARI New Delhi and Chairman Task Force (Cucurbits) PPV and FR Authority. He was Member, Task Force, DBT and DST, GoI. He was Director, ICAR-IISR, Calicut and Vice-Chancellor, Kerala Agricultural University from 2001-2006. His mentors include Late Dr. B. Rai, Late Dr.V.L. Chopra and Prof. M.S. Swaminathan.
