Priyabrata Santra
Principal Scientist (Soil Physics) & Head (Division of Natural Resources) ICAR- Central Arid Zone Research Institute
Bio
Dr. Priyabrata Santra, Head and Principal Scientist (Soil Physics/Soil & Water Conservation) has been working in Indian Council of Agricultural Research at Central Arid Zone Research Institute (ICAR-CAZRI) since 2003. He obtained his Masters in Agricultural Physics from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi in 2001 and PhD in Soil Physics / Hydrology in 2009 from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He visited International Centre on Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy in 2010 to participate in college on soil physics for 12 days. He was awarded with Junior Associate (Soil Physics) of ICTP for the period 2012-2017, FAST Track research grant for Young Scientist during 2012-2015, ICAR Lal Bahadur Shastri Young Scientist award in 2016, Recognition award by Society for Conservation of Nature (SCON) in 2021, Gold Medal award by Indian Association of Soil and Water Conservationist (IASWC) in 2022. He visited several countries for his advanced research in soil science, digital agriculture and renewable energy application e.g. ICTP, Trieste Italy during 2010, ISRIC World Soil Information/Wageningen UR, Netherland in 2013, INRA Orleans, France in 2013, University of Sydney, Australia in 2016, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2018, Fraunhofer ISE, Freiburg, Germany and Piacenza, Italy in 2022. He completed several externally funded projects e.g. agrivoltaics system funded by ICAR, solar PV pumping based irrigation for improving water productivity funded by DST, dual purpose wind barrier funded by DST, Govt of India, revival of village pond by DST, Govt of India, improving crop water productivity in khadin funded by ICARDA etc. He is currently working on externally funded projects on hyperspectral signature-based rapid soil testing funded by NASF, ICAR and the project on quantification of moisture and carbon flux through eddy covariance technique funded by NRSC, Hyderabad. He has published 85 research papers in reputed international/national journals, five authored books, three edited book and three research bulletins.