Sandeep Chakraborty- Sandeep, has submitted his thesis for the Doctor of Philosophy degree with the title, ‘Modern Polyphasic Taxonomy of Cyanobacteria from the Indian Sundarbans’ in the year 2021.
His research interests primarily include the Taxonomy and Systematics of Cyanobacteria using a
polyphasic approach. In his doctoral research, he contributed a thorough alpha-diversity study of
biofilm-forming cyanobacteria from the Indian Sundarbans with a report assigning taxonomic
affiliation of three novel genera and five novel species. His expertise includes molecular biology,
bioinformatics, and phylogenetic reconstructions. He is working as an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Botany, Achhruram Memorial College, Jhalda (affiliated under Sidho Kanho Birsha
University) since 2016 till date.

Email: sandeep061192@gmail.com

Shayontani Basu is a DST- Purse Fellow working on isolation of bio active compounds from cyanobacteria of the Sundarbans. Shayontani has a Bachelor degree in Microbiology from University of Calcutta with first class (2013) and Masters Degree in Marine Science from University of Calcutta with first class (2015). She is also pursuing her M.Phil in Oceanography and Coastal Management from School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University, from 2016.

Email: shinybasu@gmail.com

Mrs. Saranya Balu, currently working as a Senior Research Assistant under DBT, Govt. of West Bengal funding project- “Bioremediation of Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Sundarbans by application of phototrophic biofilms”. She holds a Bachelor degree in Biochemistry (2011) from University of Mysore, Karnataka and completed her Masters in Biochemistry (2013) from Bharathiar University, Tamil Nadu. She was working as a Senior Research Fellow in ICAR funded project titled “Network project on High Value compound and phytochemicals” at ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research, Kerala. She has published a paper titled, “Turmeric and cinnamon dominate in antioxidant potential among four major spices” in Journal of Spices and Aromatic Crops and awarded with H.S.Mehta Memorial award for Best oral presentation in SYMAC viii (2015) for the same. Her current work includes isolation of phototrophic biofilms from Sundarbans and their effect on bioremediation of poly aromatic hydrocarbons.Also estimation of ployaromatic hydrocarbons in water and soils fromSundarbans regions.

E mail: sarusaranya.balu@gmail.com

Ankita Bhowmik is currently working as Junior Research Fellow at School Of Environmental Studies, Jadavpur University. She is B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from West Bengal University Technology (2016) and M.Tech in Environmental Biotechnology from Jadavpur University (2018). Her dissertation in Bachelor’s degree was on “Experimental investigation of degradability of Polyethene (PE) under different media in comparison with biodegradability of Polylactic Acid (PLA) and synthesized potato and maize starch film” and during the Master’s degree dissertation she worked on “Production of an Organic Fertilizer by Utilizing Slaughterhouse Wastes: Process development and Product Characterization”. Now she is working as JRF under DST funded project- “Production of organic fertilizer by utilizing slaughterhouse wastes and its application for the cultivation of potato and vegetables”.

E mail: ankitabhowmik15@yahoo.com

Shantanu Bhunia, currently pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the School of Environmental Studies under the Faculty Council of Interdisciplinary Studies, Law & Management at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. After completing his Master’s from Vidyasagar University in 2017, Shantanu joined Sabang College as a guest faculty of Botany and was then selected for the Junior Research Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology &  Biotechnology of Government of West Bengal at Jadavpur University. His Ph.D. work is on ‘Performance of recycled slaughterhouse waste as plant nutrient on some vegetable crops cultivated in Gangetic alluvial region of West Bengal’ and is also associated with another DBT funded project on ‘Bioremediation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons in Sundarbans by application of phototrophic biofilms. During his post-graduate dissertation, Shantanu worked on ‘Biotechnological potentials of endophytic microorganisms of Jangalmahal; a part of West Medinipur district, West Bengal’. He received a prestigious IndianOil scholarship (2010-2012) at a higher secondary level and Swami Vivekananda scholarship (2015-2017) for post-graduate study. Shantanu has published six research articles, two book chapters, and one conference paper as well as being co-inventor of a patent (370569 of 2021) granted in India. He was awarded for best poster presentation at Vidyasagar University (2017) and Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (2020). He secured top rank (among top 5% category) in MHRD sponsored NPTEL certificate course on ‘Organic Farming for Sustainable Agricultural Production’ conducted by IIT Kharagpur. Recently, Shantanu presented his research work at Korea University, Seoul during an international event on ‘Waste Management and Valorization of a Sustainable Future’ organized by the prestigious Nature publishing group, and selected to visit Aston University in the UK under the Going Global Partnership Collaboration Grant. Moreover, in2022 he was assigned as Reviewer by the Scientific Reports of Nature and Journal of Environmental Challenges of Elsevier as well as appointed as member of the International Association for Water, Environment, Energy, and Society (IAWEES) and Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI).

Email: shanu.bhunia@gmail.com

Arup Ratan Roy, currently working as a CSIR-Senior research fellow has B.Sc. degree with honours in Botany (2014) from Vidyasagar College under University of Calcutta and M.Sc. degree in Botany (2016) with specialization in advanced plant physiology biochemistry and plant molecular biology from department of Botany, West Bengal State University, Kolkata. He has cleared GATE (2018) in life science and CSIR-UGC-NET(2017) in life sciences with JRF AIR-121. His Ph.D. work is based on the identification of cyanobacteria of Indian Sundarbans using polyphasic taxonomic approach.

E mail: arupratanroy3@gmail.com

Tanaya Bhowmick, currently working as CSIR-Junior Research Fellow at School of Environmental Studies of Jadavpur University under the joint supervision of Dr. Reshmi Das and Prof. Joydeep Mukherjee, has completed her B.Sc. degree with honours in Molecular Biology and Bio-Technology (2015) securing first class first from University of Kalyani and obtained M.Sc. degree in Molecular Biology and Bio-Technology (2017) securing first class from the same university. During her post-graduate dissertation, she worked on “Anti-cancer effect of Thymoquinone loaded mesoporous nanoparticle (TQ-MSN) on breast cancer cells” at the Centre for Research in Nano-Science and Nano-Technology of  University of Calcutta. She has cleared CSIR-UGC-NET LS (AIR 74) in 2017 and CSIR-UGC-NET JRF (AIR 91) in 2018 in Life Sciences. Tanaya’s PhD work is on “Effect of climate change and land use pattern on Blue Carbon storage by coastal ecosystem”. Recently, Tanaya published an article entitled “Assessing the effect of herbicide diuron on river biofilm: a statistical model” in journal Chemosphere and presented her research at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2021 (New Orleans, LA).

Email: tbhowmick1995@gmail.com