Dr. Abhijit Mitra, Associate Professor and Former Head, Department of Marine Science, University of Calcutta (INDIA), has been active in the sphere of Oceanography since 1985. He obtained his Ph.D. as a NET qualified scholar in 1994. Since then, he joined Calcutta Port Trust and WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature-India), in various capacities to carry out research programmes on environmental science, biodiversity conservation, climate change and carbon sequestration. Presently, Dr. Mitra is serving as Director, Research of Techno India University, West Bengal. He has to his credit about 598 scientific publications in various national and international journals, and 46 books of postgraduate standards. Dr. Mitra is presently a member of several committees like PACON International, IUCN, SIOS, Mangrove Society of India and The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences and has successfully completed about 17 projects on biodiversity loss in fishery sector, coastalpollution, aquaculture, alternative livelihood, climate change and carbon sequestration. Dr. Mitra also visited as a faculty member and an invited speaker in several Universities of Singapore, Kenya, Oman and USA. In 2008, Dr. Mitra was invited as a visiting fellow at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, USA, to deliver a series of lecture on climate change. Dr. Mitra also successfully guided 41 Ph.D. students. Presently, his research areas include environmental science, mangrove ecology, sustainable aquaculture, alternative livelihood, climate change and carbon sequestration.
Dr. Sufia Zaman, presently serving as Head, Department of Oceanography in Techno India University, West Bengal, started her career in the field of Marine Science since 2001. She worked in the rigorous region of Indian Sundarbans and has wide range of experience in exploring the floral and faunal diversity of Sundarbans. She has published 5 books on carbon sequestration,265 scientific papers and contributed chapters in several books on biodiversity, environmental science, aquaculture and livelihood development. Dr. Zaman is presently a member of Fisheries Society of India. She is also running projects on carbon sequestration by mangroves of Indian Sundarbans. She is the recipient of DST Women Scientist and Jawaharlal Memorial Doctoral fellowship awards. Her areas of research include aquaculture, fish nutrition, phytoplankton diversity, climate change mangrove ecology and alternative livelihood. Dr. Zaman is also the first researcher in the maritime state of West Bengal (India), who initiated trial experiments on iron fertilization and subsequent enhancement of primary (phytoplankton) and secondary (fish) productions in the brackish water ponds of Indian Sundarbans with the financial assistance of Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Dr. Zaman is also providing consultancy on green technology to several industries, NGOs and corporate sectors.
