The Art of Teaching is the Art of Assisting Discovery

Principal- Dr.S.Manickavasagam M.Sc(Agri), Ph.D, PDF(UK)

Dr. S. Manickavasagam had his B.Sc. (Ag) and M.Sc. (Ag) in Agricultural Entomology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, and Ph.D. from IARI, New Delhi. Done Post-Doctoral Research at Natural History Museum, London availing the prestigious Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship during 2007. Served as a Visiting Scientist at Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China. Since his Ph.D. in 1991, he has been concentrating on “Biodiversity of Insect Parasitoids” and described nearly 100 new species of insect parasitoids.

During his tenure at the Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University for over 28 years, he has mobilized more than 3 crores of rupees from external funding agencies and was instrumental in creating many specialized laboratories for doing Entomological Research. The notable ones are for Insect Taxonomy and Biological control. He has initiated a unique “Insect Museum” containing lakhs of insect specimens where all insect orders known from India are housed and displayed including the immatures. Insect Parasitoid collections are unique and even praised by global experts. About 25 species of chalcid parasitoids have been coded and deposited with Genebank and got the accession numbers.

He has travelled to more than 15 countries to share his research findings / visit advanced laboratories. Published more than 160 papers in National and International journals, 10 books/book chapters and has a descent i-10 and h- indices. He has guided 14 Ph.D. and 31 M.Sc. (Ag) scholars. Recipient of honours like FRES, FESI, FPPAI, FSBA, Prof. T.N. Ananthakrishnan Award-2014 and Rao Sahib Dr. T. V. Ramakrishna Ayyar memorial award-2021.

He has awarded fold medal and certificates for best on going PhD student during 1992 Dr. Ramiah medal and maximum GPA of 4.00 at 4.00 Dr. M. S. Swaminathan medal. He was member board of studies in TNAU for 3 years. He has a teaching service of more than 38 years teaching plant breeding and genetic courses to UG, PG and PhD students at Madurai, Coimbatore, Trichy and Perambalur.

He has guided 15 M.Sc. (Agri.) students and 7 PhD students at AC & RI, Madurai. He was responsible for getting ICAR revolving fund for earn while you learn. He has published 110 research papers in National (82) and International journals (28) and author for one book. He is responsible for getting Billgates Melinda Project viz., CISA to Tamil Nadu a Project outlay of 3 cr. obtained. Visited IRRI, Phillipines for two times. Responsible for development and release of 18 varieties in rice, cotton, gingelly blackgram, redgram, groundnut, castor, snake gourd and brinjal.

During 1995, he was part of an elite group of teachers entrusted with the job of revision of syllabus for Agronomy courses in B.Sc. (Ag) degree programme of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. He had a vast administrative experience in agricultural education and research at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University as evidenced by his stints as Head of Rice Research Station, Ambasamudram and as Head of Department of Agronomy at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Killikulam.

He had a vast experience in farm management at TNAU colleges and research stations, and has enabled to develop exceptional skills in human resource management and problem solving. As a scientist, he has conducted research projects in dry land crops, cotton and rice. Some of his research findings on dryland technologies such as time and seed rate for pre-monsoon sowing of cotton and sorghum are included in the TNAU Crop Production Guide. He was the first Principal of Institute of Agriculture at Ambasamudram and responsible for establishment of Diploma in Agriculture programme offered by TNAU. He served as a Principal in S. Thangapazham Agricultural College, Vasudevanallur (Affiliated college of TNAU, Coimbatore) for one year during 2019-20.

During his term in KAU, he has guided 14 M.Sc students, 5 PhD students and published 56 research papers in reputed indian journals as well as international journals. He has contributed chapters for 3 monographs and also authored a handbook on Horticulture. He was a principal scientist for releasing 3 varieties of cardamom, 2 varieties of vegetables and 1 variety of jackfruit. Dr. Vasnthakumar functioned as the principal investigator for research projects funded by DBT, ICAR, NABARD and NHM.

Since then from 2012 to 2019 he worked overseas in reputed universities of Ethiopia and some other countries. Further while working at the Arunachal university of studies he organized a national seminar titled “Sustainable Agriculture and Conservation Farming for the North-Eastern regions of India” in January, 2020.

His teaching experience spans for 29 years to UG, PG and Ph.D. degree programmes. He has handled more than fifteen different courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students. He has guided eight M.Sc. (Agri.) students and 5 Ph.D. students and one PDF student. He has also guided 16 M.Sc. (Ag) students and 16 Ph.D. studentsas minor advisor. He has completed three externally funded research projects and 9 university research projects including hydroponic maize fodder production. He has published ten books with ISBN, 7 books without ISBN, published more than 250 research articles both in international and national journals apart from many popular articles.He has Scopus H index of 7 and Google Scholar H index of 52.

After that she worked as Assistant Professor in The Indian Agriculture College, Tirunelveli from 15.12.2016 to 18.08.2017. After securing Ph.D., she worked as Assistant Professor in “Don Bosco College of Agriculture”, Arakkonam. She had published eight research papers in reputed national and international journals.

He had vast experience in livestock and poultry farm management at TNAU colleges (Madurai & Killikulam). He had conducted research projects on newer feed resources, poultry nutrition and Agro forestry research project (ICAR – AICRP) in TANUVAS. He had served as the Head of Institute of Animal Nutrition (IAN) and food technology unit at TANUVAS (CFTU), Chennai.

He has published more than 15 research articles in journals, book chapters, conferences, and Scopus/SCI journals with international peer review. He has been honoured with two distinguished Awards (Best Paper Awards) from prestigious organisations. He currently works as a peer reviewer and editorial member for indexed journals. He is a Life Member of both the International Association of Engineers and the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (I.I.Ch.E). He has participated in more than 20 faculty development programme and short-term courses offered by IIT, NIT, and other universities.

His research interests include: Food Rheology, Food Rheology, Thermal and non-thermal processing of foods, post-harvest technology of fruits and vegetables, Minimal processing of food and Process modelling and optimization.

He has 10 years of experience in research and 18 months in teaching in Genetics and Plant Breeding with 16 research publications to his credit. He has participated and presented several research papers in various National, International Seminars, Symposia and Conferences. As a Conference Co-ordinator, he organized two International Conferences in the field of Genetics and Plant Breeding at Thanthai Rover Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development, Perambalur during 24th & 25th March, 2023.

She has attended several National and international conferences. Currently, she is working as Associate Professor in Plant pathology, The Indian Agriculture College, Radhapuram.

She had published one research articles in Asian Journal of Dairy and Food Research on the topic ‘Physico-chemical, sensorial and microbiological quality of frozen avocado (Persea americana Mill.) slices’ and one book chapter on the topic ‘Freeze drying: A sub-zero preservation technique’ in the book ‘Emerging techniques in Food Processing’.She had published three popular articles in Kerala Karshakan and KrishiJagran on processing technologies of green chillies, tea and tender coconut and presented papers in two International Conferences in International conference on innovations and challenges in food processing sector and International conference on "Emerging technologies in food processing. She had attended webseries on ‘Redefining Agricultural Research and Education Priorities – Way Forward’ organized as part of Bharat Ki AzadiKaAmruthMahotsav hosted by ICAR-CPCRI’ and more conferences and seminars.

She had worked as a project assistant in Kerala Agricultural University. Currently, she is working as Assistant Professor in Horticulture in The Indian Agriculture College,Radhapuram.

She was the KAU gold medal winner in Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry for her MSc. programme and won the zonal award for best MSc. thesis work by the Indian Society of Soil Science, New Delhi in 2019. She had published five research papers and several popular articles in reputed national and international journals and had presented papers in many national and international seminars. Currently she is working as Assistant Professor in the department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry in The Indian Agriculture College, Radhapuram.

He has published 5 research papers and 2 review articles in reputed National and International Journals and one book. He has attended many National and international conferences and presented papers there. He had 5 years of experience in research and teaching. Currently, He is working as Assistant Professor in Agronomy, The Indian Agriculture College, Radhapuram.

During her stay in London, she examined and imaged all the Indian chalcidid types deposited with NHM. She has vast exposure in morphology based identification of hymenopteran parasitoids, especially chalcidids. So far, she has described 3 new species and recorded more than 20 new distributional records of chalcidids. After securing Ph.D. she served as Assistant Professor in Adhiparasakthi Horticultural College from Feb 2019 to Feb 2020 and in Doon Business School, Dehradun (Sep 2021 to August 2022). She has been winning awards and attending conferences and workshops, She published 8 articles in various national and international journals and continuing her research on hymenopteran parasitoids.

She had identified nine new species of mymarid parasitoids (Part of Ph. D. work). She took active part in creating an Insect Museum at Entomology Department, Annamalai University. She had attended a training program on “Genomics of agriculturally important insects” conducted by CAAST (Centre for Advanced Agricultural Science and Technology) held at Division of Entomology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi sponsored by World bank - ICAR National Agricultural Higher Education Project. She had presented a paper on “Biodiversity of Indian mymarid egg parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea)” at the VIII International Biodiversity Congress, held at Forest Research Institute. She had published six research papers in reputed national and international journals. Currently she is working as Assistant Professor in the department of Agricultural Entomology in The Indian Agriculture College, Radhapuram.

She has been worked as student Senior Research Fellow at Agricultural college and research institute, Coimbatore, Bayer crops Science ltd, Currently, she is working as Assistant Professor in Agronomy, The Indian Agriculture College, Radhapuram.

She had published three research papers and one short communication in National and International journals and had presented papers in national and international seminars and as resource person in training on “Value added food products from Aloe vera” Currently she is working as Assistant Professor in the department of Horticulture in the Indian Agriculture College, Radhapuram.

He has served in various countries for about 23 years as Senior Engineer (Tree Management), Senior Engineer (Landscaping), Horticulture Manager (Technical) and Nursery Consultant /Researcher. He has participated and presented several research papers in various National, International Seminars, Symposia and Conferences. He is an ISA Certified Arborist from International Society of Arboriculture, USA. He is one of the key persons in laying turf in football courts for the recently concluded FIFA matches in 2022. He has served in countries like Qatar and Singapore.