Dr. Vijay Joshi joins AgriLife Research center in Uvalde
UVALDE — Dr. Vijay Joshi is the new Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant systems biologist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Uvalde, said Dr. Daniel Leskovar, center director.
Joshi’s research will focus on investigating metabolic, molecular and physiological networks of plant stress adaptation in key vegetable and field crops under different environments, Leskovar said.
“Dr. Joshi is a research scientist with 16-plus years of professional research and leadership experience in plant biology and agricultural biotechnology,” Leskovar said. “He has a strong background in plant molecular biology, genetics, metabolism, biochemistry and plant breeding. We’re very happy to have him here to work on our research at the center, which focuses on developing crops with enhanced nutrition, leading innovative research for renewable energy sources and implementing new methods to improve environmental quality.”
Joshi obtained his master’s degree from the College of Agriculture in Pune, India, and his doctorate from Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidypaeeth Agricultural University in Maharashtra, India.
He previously worked for Dow AgroSciences in Portland, Oregon. Prior to that, he was a research associate at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University in New York.
“I’m hoping my research will blend into research initiatives engaged in vegetable and field crops improvement programs at the Uvalde center,” Joshi said. “As a broader objective, my research program would focus on enhancing vegetable and field-crop productivity and quality through identification of novel traits enabling enhanced tolerance to stresses and nutrient-use efficiency.”
Joshi said his general research interests include metabolic and physiological plant responses to environmental stress, nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen sensing, molecular aspects of plant metabolism and regulation, pathway engineering for traits improvement, root architecture studies and cross-talk between stress-induced metabolites and key hormonal pathways.
He has authored or co-authored numerous scientific publications related to his research.
