Under supervision of Prof. Jan Dirk van Elsas, University of Groningen (Netherlands), I received my PhD degree in 2012. My research work was focused on bacterial fungal interactions (BFI) in soil; bacterial diversity and abundance affected by soil fungi. After the PhD, I joined COMSATS University Islamabad (Pakistan) and served (teaching and research) in the Department of Environmental Sciences. In 2015, I won the President’s International Fellowship and started my PostDoc in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China in the research domain of ‘microbial ecology and environmental antibiosis’. Along with peer review publications, my research has also been presented at international scientific fora including ISME, FEMS, BAGECO, and Pasteur Institute. Following are the distinctions during my academic career: - Fellowship award under ‘President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI.2015-16)’ at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. - HEC funded ‘Travel Grant’ to participate in BAGECO-12 held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) from 9-13 June, 2013. - The ISME Travel Award for Young Scientists, 2012. - FEMS Young scientist award (as meeting Grant) March 11, 2011. - HEC Scholarship 2007-2012 by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, for Doctoral Studies in The Netherlands. - National and international research grants including HEC (SRGP, NRPU), CUI (CRGP), ANSO, COMSTECH, TWAS-IsDB.