PROF. APPA RAO PODILE, FNA, FASc, FNASc, FNAAS

Professor Appa Rao Podile has over 30 years of teaching and research experience. As a Senior Professor, Professor Podile works in the area of molecular plant microbe interactions in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad. The focus of his lab is on root microbiome of legumes. His group critically examines the chemical signals in plant-microbe interactions with special emphasis on chitooligosaccharides. Professor Podile teaches microbiology, molecular plant pathology and microbial technology to Masters’ students.

Professor Podile is an elected Fellow of all major science academies of the country including Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, Association of Microbiologists of India, New Delhi, the Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences and founding Fellow of Telangana Academy of Sciences, Hyderabad. Professor Podile served as President of Association of Microbiologists of India.

Received prestigious J.C. Bose Fellowship from DST, Tata Innovation Fellowship from DBT, K.C. Mehta Memorial Award in Crop Protection from National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Rangaswami Award in Agricultural Microbiology from Association of Microbiologists of India, Outstanding Young Scientist Award, Indian Society of Mycology and Plant Pathology, Goyal Science Foundation’s Rajib Goyal Young Scientist Award in Agriculture. Professor Podile received Fulbright Fellowship to participate in Academic Leadership Seminar.

Prof. Podile has chaired/co-chaired important national level task force committees, program advisory committees, search committees etc. Besides being a member of the research advisory councils of scientific institutes of ICAR and DST he is also on the board of Governors of IIM, Trichy and AIUCAA, Pune. Indian Science Congress Association has conferred Millennium Plaque of Honor  and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University, Faizabad, U.P. conferred Honorary Doctorate. He is also the Chairman of Southern Regional Centre of AICTE.

Guided 24 students for Ph.D. and four for M.Phil. At present, he is guiding 7 Ph.D. students and 3 post-doctoral fellows. Most of the students are well-placed both in India and abroad.

Currently, his lab is supported through a SERB grant and J.C. Bose Fellowship from DST. He has published about 100 papers in peer-reviewed high impact journals with over 3400 citations with an H-index of 34.