S Shivajii

S Shivaji currently serves as the Director Emeritus and Senior Scientist at the Prof Brien Holden Eye Research Centre (BHERC) at LVPEI, Hyderabad. He joined LVPEI, in August 2013, as a Microbiology Mentor and in 2016 was appointed as the Director of BHERC till April 2020. Prior to this, he was with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and retired as a Director-grade Scientist in 2012. He was also the co-founder of the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered species a facility dedicated to the conservation of endangered animals from 2000-2012. His research interests include microbial diversity of Antarctica, Arctic, Himalayas, Stratosphere. He has the distinction of visiting both the Arctic and Antarctic for his research. He is a fellow of National Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences, Telangana Akademi of Sciences, Association of Microbiologists and Zoological Society of Kolkata, India. In recognition of his work in Antarctic microbiology he was awarded the Antarctic Award for excellence in the field of Biological Sciences in 2002 and the National Award in Polar Sciences and Cryosphere in 2016 and E K Janaki Ammal award for research in Microbial Taxonomy (2018) by the Government of India. The Association of Microbiologists of India conferred the first Carl Woese Memorial award, 2014. He has also received the prestigious Prof L S Ramaswami Award, Prof T C Anand Kumar Award and Prof N R Moudgal Award conferred by the Indian Society for the Study of Reproduction and Fertility for his contributions in the area of conservation biology and reproductive biology in the years 2010, 2013 and 2014 respectively. He is also a recipient of the Dr. Subhas Mukherjee award by the Association of Clinical embryologists of India, in September 2017, the Prof J V Bhat-Eureka Forbes Award for Excellence in Research in Microbiology, 1992 and the M. S. Malhotra Research Prize for the year 1996 from DRDO, Government of India. He has had several international collaborations in prestigious institutes in Germany, Japan, France and the UK. He has published more than 350 research papers and 2 books.