I am a plant pathologist and molecular biologist with more than ten years of research on fungal plant pathogens and crop disease diagnosis. As a Postdoctoral Associate at the Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Virginia Tech, USA (2023 to 2025), I characterized Fusarium species associated with Fusarium wilt of flue-cured tobacco, assessed their pathogenicity in greenhouse assays, designed and conducted laboratory and greenhouse fungicide efficacy trials, reported Neopestalotiopsis species on strawberry, and applied PCR and qPCR diagnostics to tobacco diseases. I completed my PhD in Biotechnology at Amity University, Lucknow, India. Earlier, at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, I worked as a Senior Research Fellow (2011 to 2014) on the population diversity of Fusarium udum and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris, and as a Research Associate (2014 to 2017) on a chickpea genomics project. My research interests are plant disease diagnosis, soil-borne fungal pathogens, molecular diagnostics and integrated disease management.