Dr. N. Devasena

Dr. N. Devasena is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding at Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore. She holds a Ph.D. in Agriculture with specialization in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Agricultural College and Research Institute, Coimbatore, TNAU, completed in 2015, with a grade of 9.04/10.00. She also holds an M.Sc. (Ag.) in Plant Breeding and Genetics from TNAU, completed in 1999 with a grade of 9.42/10.00, and a B.Sc. (Ag.) in Agriculture from TNAU, completed in 1997 with a grade of 8.67/10.00. She has fourteen years of research experience and four years of teaching experience in conventional and molecular breeding of field crops, including rice, groundnut, cotton, foxtail millet and sesame.

Her academic and research expertise includes conventional and molecular breeding, high-throughput screening of rice pests and diseases, nutrient-use efficiency in rice and foxtail millet, SNP marker-based mapping of biotic stress resistance, DNA-based genetic purity testing, metagenomic evaluation of rice genotypes, and marker-assisted breeding. Her doctoral research focused on the validation of QTLs linked to oil content and marker-assisted selection for the high-oleic trait in groundnut. She has also contributed to the release of the TNAU rice variety CO 55, introgression of the oleic trait in groundnut through backcross breeding, and development of CGMS lines and diversification of restorers for hybrid cotton. At Karunya, she has contributed to UG, PG and Ph.D. teaching and research guidance, coordinated NAAC Criterion 3 and ICAR coaching activities, collaborated with IIRR scientists for PG research, and supported research operations and infrastructure development under an ICAR molecular genetics research scheme.

Dr. Devasena has served as Principal Investigator under the DST Women Scientist Scheme from January 2019 to March 2022, successfully securing and managing a research grant of ₹30 lakhs for a project on phosphorus-use efficiency in rice. Her professional experience also includes serving as a Women Scientist at the Department of Rice, TNAU; Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Rice, TNAU; Officer Trainee in Quality Control at JK Agri Genetics, Hyderabad; and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Cotton, TNAU. She has received the ICAR Senior Research Fellowship for doctoral research, TNAU Merit Scholarship for her M.Sc., and ICAR Junior Research Fellowship for her M.Sc. programme. She has also received the Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Award for Young Scientists in 2017 and secured first prize for oral paper presentation at an international conference on plant breeding in 2021.

She has published 32 research articles, including 13 Scopus-indexed publications with impact factors and 15 NAAS-rated publications, covering rice stability, QTL mapping, genomic regions and marker-trait associations, rice pest resistance and genetic dissection of disease resistance. Her scholarly contributions also include books and book chapters on crop improvement, pangenomes, stress-resistant designer crops and heterosis breeding. She has attended specialized training in instrumentation and biochemical analysis, genomics and metagenomics, and Fluidigm SNP genotyping, and has organized and contributed to academic training and technical events. She has qualified the National Eligibility Test in Plant Breeding and serves as a reviewer for the journal Planta, in addition to being a lifetime member of four scientific bodies. She has also submitted GBS-based sequencing data to the NCBI database.