PAU Scientist wins DST National Award and Cash Prize

Ludhiana, July 7, 2023: Dr Hira Singh, working as Assistant Professor, Department of Vegetable Science, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), has won laurels by writing the best scientific story based on his Ph.D thesis research under the Department of Science and Technology - Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (DST-AWSAR) Award 2022. For this, he has been awarded Rs 1,00,000 cash prize money by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. About 2,300 researchers from across all the scientific fields from basic to medical sciences participated in this competition, wherein participants were asked to write their whole Ph.D research work in the form of a scientific story in a layman’s language. The entries were judged by a jury of renowned scientists and science communicators, as decided by DST.

Dr Hira has earned his Ph.D degree from ICAR - Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and carried out his research work on onion breeding and biotechnology. He has published his Ph.D research work in high impact factor journals of national and international repute. Besides, he has contributed four book chapters in international books and presented his work in various national and international conferences. He has also been awarded the Best Oral Presentation Award and the Young Scientist Award. Furthermore, he has got genomics research grant under NAHEP project (CAAST on Genomics) after open competition at Indian the Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Being a prolific writer, he has contributed various articles to the leading Punjabi and English newspapers as well.

Dr Satbir Singh Gosal, Vice-Chancellor, PAU congratulated Dr Hira for winning this national-level highly competitive and prestigious award. He said that such awards will further motivate young scholars to popularize their significant research findings among the general public.

Dr MIS Gill, Registrar and Dean, College of Horticulture and Forestry; Dr PK Chhuneja, Dean, Postgraduate Studies and Dr TS Dhillon, Head, Department of Vegetable Science, also appreciated the efforts of Dr Hira and said that such scientific write-ups in the form of stories were need of the hour to generate the interest of the common man in applied research projects.