Director’s Desk

Dr. M. Raveendran, Ph.D.,
Director of Research  
Email: drres@tnau.ac.in /raveendrantnau@gmail.com
98421 81968 / 81480 95400
Phone: 0422-6611447, 6611547

Dr. Raveendran Muthurajan completed his Ph.D. in Plant Biotechnology during 2002 from TNAU, Coimbatore. He has carried out his Post-Doctoral Research on Genomics and Bioinformatics at International Rice Research Institute, Philippines (2003-2006). He was sent to the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS), Tsukuba, Japan and Beijing Genomics Institute, Beijing, China as a Visiting Researcher.

He has offered more than 30 courses to UG/PG/Ph.D students and mentored 3 sponsored Post-Doctoral Fellows, 5 Ph.D and more than 25 Master’s students for carrying out their thesis research.  Several of his Master’s students have secured National Level Fellowships (MANF, RGNF, CSIR, DBT-JRF etc.,) and International Fellowships (Marie-Curie Fellowship, Lee Foundation Fellowship, DAAD Fellowship).

Dr. Raveendran has obtained more than 17 externally funded projects from national (DBT, DST, BIRAC) and international (IRRI, Royal Society, BMZ, BMGF) funding agencies. Dr. Raveendran has published more than 150 research papers in journals of national/international repute. He has developed submergence tolerant rice CO 43 Sub1 through marker assisted back cross breeding and released through Central Variety Release Committee. He was also involved in development and release of fine grain rice variety CO 52. He is one of the key members in a team who developed herbicide tolerant rice (Imazethapyr resistant rice – first of its kind in India) and paved way for optimizing labour and water saving direct seeded rice cultivation. Dr. Raveendran has also developed drought/salinity tolerant rice through MAS (CBMAS1405, CBMAS14142, IWP-saltol) which are under advanced stages of testing. He has also explored native rice genetic diversity and identified a rice genotype possessing nutritive and therapeutic values (diabetic friendly rice).

Dr. Raveendran is a recipient of several honors and awards viz., Tamil Nadu Scientist Award (2017) from TN State Council for Science and Technology, Best Researcher Award of TNAU (2010), International Society for the study of Lumbar Spine (ISSLS) Award (2017) and Spine Researchers Award (2019) from North American Spine Society (NASS). He is elected Fellow of Association of Rice Research Workers, India and serves as member in several national Level Scientific Committees of Government of India Agencies.