BS in Agriculture, Kerala Agricultural University; MS in Agriculture with a specialization in plant breeding and genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University; PhD, Kerala Agricultural University

Genetic analysis of productivity, breeding systems for plants, pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, polyploidy breeding

Ramakrishnan (Ram) M. Nair (India) was appointed Regional Director for South and Central Asia in March 2020. He also leads the WorldVeg global legume breeding program and the International Mungbean Improvement Network (IMIN). Ram has over 30 years of experience in managing and leading national and international projects. He began his career in 1986 as an Agricultural Officer (Extension) in the Department of Agriculture, Government of Kerala, India. He received his PhD with a specialization in plant breeding from Kerala Agricultural University, India. Ram spent ten years as a forage breeder at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) in Adelaide and four years at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Victoria, Australia. There he researched a range of plant species including Medicago, Trifolium, Trigonella, Melilotus, Lolium and Atriplex. In 1998, Ram was seconded to the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Aberystwyth, UK. He completed a Professional Management Program from the School of Business, University of Adelaide in 2010. Recently Ram completed a course on gender responsive plant breeding organized by Makerere and Cornell Universities as part of their Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) project. His extensive publication record includes 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, 65 conference papers and, 12 book chapters. He is a member of the International Legume Society, serves as the Regional Secretary (India) for the Society for Advancement of Breeding Research in Asia and Oceania (SABRAO), and is a member of the Editorial Board for the SABRAO Journal of Breeding and Genetics and of the Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANRES) Journal. In 2008, he won the SARDI Breakthrough Innovation Award and in 2018, Ram and his team won the WorldVeg Science of Excellence Award for their work on mungbean.