Dr. Sheikh Adil Edrisi is an Assistant Professor at the Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (TSLAS) at Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, India. He earned his MPhil and PhD from Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India. He is researching to restore degraded lands for multipurpose environmental benefits, exploring the role of GIS to assess land productivity, bioremediation of contaminated and degraded lands for efficient bioenergy production, biodiversity conservation and restoration by developing an apposite policy framework for attaining key UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). He has received the 2021 Early Career Start-up Research Grant from SERB, Govt. of India, the 2021 Young Scientist Medal from International Society of Environmental Botanists (ISEB), Lucknow, India, the 2019 Green Talents Award from the BMBF in Germany, and the NASI-Springer Award (2018) from NASI, India. Additionally, he holds editorial roles in reputed journals in the area of land degradation, restoration, and sustainable production, such as Energy, Ecology and Environment, Anthropocene Science (Springer), Restoration Ecology, Land Degradation and Development (Wiley), and PLoS-One (PLoS). Dr. Adil is also the ‘initial member’ of Global Soil Biodiversity Initiatives and is currently an active IUCN-CEM, CEESP, and CEC commission member to resolve pressing global challenges of land restoration, bioenergy production, and sustainable development.
Dr. Pradeep Kumar Dubey is a Program Manager for the Sustainable Landscape and Restoration program at the World Resource Institute, India (WRI India). His primary area of expertise lies in agroecosystem management following a bottom-up approach, and he currently focuses on landscape restoration in Maharashtra, India. Pradeep holds an MSc and PhD in Environmental Science from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He has undertaken substantial agricultural surveys and field-level experimental validation, proposing various ecological solutions for agri-environmental sustainability land-soil management within the Vindhyan dryland and Gangetic Plain in eastern UP, India. Dr. Dubey is selected as an IPBES fellow for Nexus assessment, a Fellow of the Society for Plant Research in India, and a recipient of the IUCN CEM Agroecosystems Special Recognition Award and Young Scientists Award from the Society for Science of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability. He serves as a member of IUCN commissions (CEM, CEC, CEESP), the Global Land Program (GLP), and the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI). He is invited as a resource person, expert, and speaker in various state, national, and international forums. He has published research, reviews, opinions, editorial pieces, book chapters, and a lead-authored book. He has been actively involved in editorial and reviewer roles for esteemed international journals.
Dr. Cherukumalli Srinivasa Rao acquired his Ph.D. in Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry from IARI, New Delhi, and Post-Doctoral (Fellow) from Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Dr. Rao worked in the ICAR system in different capacities, from Scientist to Director. Currently, he is serving as Director of ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management, Hyderabad, since 2017. He also served the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, Hyderabad, for three years. He has been the recipient of 40 national and international awards, including the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award for Outstanding Research in Agricultural Sciences, 2019. He contributed to the UNFCCC global climate change negotiator in the agriculture sector from the Government of India. Dr. Rao is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and a Member of various National and International Committees globally. Dr. Rao specializes in Climate Change, Soil Carbon Sequestration, Carbon Balance, Dryland Production Systems, and Climate Policy. Dr. Rao is credited with 340 Research Papers, 50 Books authored/edited, 14 copyrights, and 21 Policy/Strategy/Status Papers. He visited more than 15 countries for scientific meetings. His Google Scholar total citations = 9151 and h-index = 46.
Dr. Himlal Baral is a Senior Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) scientist with CIFOR-ICRAF’s Climate Change, Energy, and Low Carbon Development team. Based in Bali, Indonesia, Dr. Baral coordinates CIFOR’s work on FLR, planted forests and bioenergy in Asia and the Pacific, specifically 1) promoting FLR for multiple ecosystem goods and services (EGS); 2) quantifying and valuing EGS under different landscape management scenarios; 3) investigating and developing locally appropriate landscape restoration models; and 4) contributing to land-resource planning for food, biomaterial, and energy secur
