P.V. Vara Prasad

P.V. Vara Prasad is a Distinguished Professor, R.O. Kruse Endowed Professor, and Director of the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification of Targeted Agricultural Systems Innovation Lab (SITAS-IL), Center for Crops, Climate and Communities in the Department of Agronomy and College of Agriculture at Kansas State University. His research focuses on understanding responses of crops to changing environments and developing best management strategies to improve and protect yields. He has research, education, and outreach activities around the world. He is passionate about human and institutional capacity building; and empowering producers and consumers to improve their lives and livelihood. He is a fellow of American Society of Agronomy; Crop Science Society of America; and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a former member of International Commission on Sustainable Agricultural Intensification, and former President of Crop Science Society of America. He currently serves as the President of the Council of Agriculture Science and Technology. He has published over 625 peer reviewed publications (over 555 journal articles, 70 book chapters), and 11 edited books/issues/topics), which are cited over 48,000 times with an h-index of 110, and i-10 index of 415. He is listed in the top 1% of highly cited and influential scholars around the world. He received extramural funding of over $200 million (>$157 million as Principal/Lead Investigator) and an $8 million in-kind donation. He graduated 31 students (17 PhD and 13 MS) as major advisor, 72 students (30 PhD and 42 MS) as committee member. He has trained >220 visiting scholars from over 15 countries at KSU and 130 scholars in other countries. He currently on advisory committee of 5 graduate students. He developed and taught two graduate courses since 2006; with an average teaching evaluation of 4.65 over 10 years. For his research, education, outreach, service and leadership activities, he received over 60 competitive awards and recognitions from multiple organizations around the world.