P.V. Vara Prasad is a University Distinguished Professor and R.O. Kruse Endowed Professor in the Department of Agronomy at Kansas State University. He was the former Director of Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab at Kansas State University. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (India) and Ph.D. from the University of Reading (U.K).
His research at K-State focuses on understanding responses of crops to changing environments and developing best management strategies to improve and protect yields. His research, education and outreach programs spread across several countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. His efforts are focused on building human and institutional capacity and improving lives and livelihoods of people and smallholder farmers around the world.
He has published >555 journal articles and book chapters; and trained >250 students for 15 different countries. For the last four years, he is listed among the top 1% of highly cited and influential scientists around the world with over 40,000 citations and h-index of 103. He received grants over $200 million to support research, education and outreach activities in united states and around the world. He is an elected fellow of the American Society of Agronomy; Crop Science Society of America; and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a former President of the Crop Science Society of America. He was recently elected to serve as the President of the Council of Agricultural Science and Technology.
