Arun Aryais currently working as Professor and Head of Botany Department and Co-ordinator, B.Sc. Environmental Science Programme in The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He is a Botanist, Phytopathologist, Philatelist and popular Science writer. He obtained his Doctorate from University of Allahabad in 1983. He has worked under the able guidance of Prof. B. Lal, Ex- Head Dept. of Botany and late Dr. Someshwar Nath Bhargava. He obtained diploma in the Elements of Marketing from Punjabi University Patiala. Dr. Arya started his teaching career as lecture in Microbiology at Gurkula Kangri University, Hardwar in 1985. He is teaching Botany at graduate and Post graduate classes since 1985. With the start of Seed Technology programme he was made coordinator in 2001. Dr. Arya is a recipient of Young scientist award of DST, New Delhi in 1986. He has worked as a senior research fellow and post doctoral research fellow of CSIR, New Delhi. He has successfully guided 2 Ph. Ds six more students are working under his guidance. He has completed numerous research projects funded by DST, CSIR, ICAR, DBT, ISRO, MoEF and UGC. He has published more than 100 research papers and 8 books. Dr. Arun Arya is actively engaged in researches in the area of Plant Pathology, Fungal Taxonomy, Physiology and Biodeterioration. He has reported three new species of Phomopsis and several new fruit rot diseases. Possible control measures for these are suggested. For the first time different fungi have been reported by his research group from objects like paper, cloth and Egyptian mummy kept in Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery. Eco-friendly plant parts obtained from rhizome, leaf and flower extracts were used to control different fungal pathogens. He has studied the indoor aeromycoflora of different museums of Gujarat. He has presented his research findings in XV International Botanical Congress at Yokohama in Japan in 1993 and 12th World Forestry Congress in Qubec City Canada in 2003. He had an honour to co-chair a session on Eco-regions in this International Congress. He also presented two research papers in 9th International Phytopathological Congress in Torino, Italy. Read More Read Less