Srinagar, Jan 30: Ishrat Riyaz, PhD Scholar of SKUAST-K’s Division of Genetics & Plant Breeding (GPB), Faculty of Agriculture Wadura has been awarded prestigious INSPIRE Fellowship by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Ishrat, who is working under the guidance of Prof Parvaze A Sofi, Head, Division of GPB SKUAST-K, has been awarded the competitive fellowship on the basis of her research proposal for her PhD where she will be evaluating the national core set and landrace diversity of beans of Kashmir Valley for morphological, nutritional and climate adaptive traits using an integrated phenotyping approach combined with multi-omics platforms. Ishrat has been earlier awarded University Gold Medal in UG and also overseas fellowship to Kansas State University under NAHEP. She has published in high impact journals including Scientific Reports, Plant Genetic Resources, Genetic Resources & Crop Evolution. Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ahmad Ganai, congratulated the student, Dean FOA Prof Shakil A Mir and her mentor and hoped that her achievements will inspire the research scholars to excel in their academic and research pursuits.