Rajeev Varshney's Biography

Rajeev Varshney, Program Director, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics

Dr. Rajeev Varshney, an Indian national and Principal Scientist is serving ICRISAT as a Research Program Director, Grain Legumes (RPD-GL) and Director - Center of Excellence in Genomics (CEG). In addition to serving ICRISAT, Rajeev, in his dual appointment also led Comparative and Applied Genomics program as a Theme Leader for CGIAR Generation Challenge Program based in Mexico for six years. Before joining ICRISAT, he worked at Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Germany for five years.

Rajeev has a basic background in molecular genetics and possess more than 15 years research experience in international agriculture. The primary contribution of Rajeev Varshney includes genome sequencing of pigeonpea and chickpea and first generation of molecular breeding products in chickpea and groundnut in addition to large-scale genomic resources like molecular markers, transcriptome assemblies and QTLs for a range of traits in legumes. Rajeev has >250 publications in leading journals including Nature, Nature Biotechnology, PNAS, Genome Biology, Trends/ Curr Opin journals, etc., 10 edited books and Special Issues (as Guest Editor) for several journals.