Dr. Natarajan Sivaraj
Research ScientistICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, India
Highest Degree
Ph.D. in Botany from Bharathidasan University, India
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Highest Degree
Ph.D. in Botany from Bharathidasan University, India
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Born in Madurai of Tamil Nadu in 1962, Dr. N. Sivaraj had his schooling in the same town and graduated in Chemistry and Botany in 1983 from the Madura College, Madurai, securing a first rank. Subsequently, he joined Saraswathi Narayanan College, Madurai for pursuing M.Sc., and M.Phil. degree courses in Botany. He pursued his doctoral degree programme at Bharathidasan University and obtained his Ph.D. in 1991. Dr. Sivaraj was selected for the Scientist position through Agricultural Research Service of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and posted to National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Regional Station, Hyderabad.
Ever since his joining in NBPGR in 1994, Dr. Sivaraj has been actively associated with plant genetic resources (PGR) activities especially, Germplasm exploration & collection, characterization, evaluation, documentation and conservation in the South East Coastal zone of India. He has led over 19 germplasm collection missions and collected around 1900 samples of agri-horticultural crop and their wild relatives. He has characterized over 1000 accessions of brinjal, linseed, sesame, horsegram and jack bean germplasm & associated with the identification of superior genotypes and registration of promising genetic stocks with ICAR/NBPGR, notably, Linseed (2) cowpea (1), Jatropha (2), Chilli (3), sorghum (1), greengram (1), blackgram (1), bottle gourd (1), and Dolichos bean (1). He has been trained in CIAT, Colombia for Geographical Information System applications for PGR management and at Netherlands for PGR management. To his credit, he has over 200 research papers on contemporary PGR issues published in peer reviewed journals, book chapters, technical articles, abstracts and others.
Dr. Sivaraj is a Fellow of Indian Society of Oilseeds Research (Hyderabad) and member of many professional Societies including Indian Society of Plant Genetic Resources (New Delhi), Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Association of India (MAPAI), Swamy Botanical Club (Tiruchirapalli), Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan (Mumbai) and others. He has received many honours/awards viz., SL Narasimha Iyengar Prize, Proficiency prize in M. Phil., Talented Scientist award by International Conference on Medicinal Plants and Herbal Products etc.