Neelima Roy Sinha (born March 26, 1954) is an American

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

. She is a professor at the

University of California Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

Early life and education

Neelima Sinha was born on March 26, 1954, in a small town near New Delhi, India. She earned her masters in Botany from

Lucknow University University of Lucknow (informally known as Lucknow University, and LU) is one of the oldest public state university based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. LU's main campus is located at Badshah Bagh, University Road area of the city with a second ...

in 1975 after which she worked for nine years as a bank manager before returning to academia, first moving to Waco, Texas in 1985 for a one year masters in environmental studies and then in 1986 entered the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, where she was the first student to join the lab of Sarah Hake, a maize geneticist at the Plant Gene Expression Center. At Berkeley, Sinha studied the knotted1 gene in maize and tomato, earning her PhD in 1991. After graduation, she received a postdoc fellowship from Pioneer Hi-Bred, which supported her work on maize and tomato genetics, working in a lab at Boston University, which otherwise focused on ''Drosophila''.

Career

In 1995, Sinha was offered, and accepted, an assistant professor position in the Department of Plant Biology at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

. She continued her career at UC Davis, and is now a full professor in the Department of Plant Biology.

Research

Sinha's research is in plant evolutionary developmental biology. Her early work examined the genes controlling leaf development, and she demonstrated that the KNOTTED-1 homeobox (''knox1'') gene regulates leaf formation in

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

. Building on that work, she showed that ''knox'' genes are involved in determining leaf shape, and she uncovered additional genes involved in leaf development. She also conducts research on the molecular genetics of parasitic plants. In 2019, her work was profiled by the ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...

''.

Honors

She was elected to be a fellow in the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

in 2005 and the

American Society of Plant Biologists The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) is a non-profit professional society for research and education in plant science with over 4,000 members world-wide. It was founded in 1924, as the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP). T ...

in 2018

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinha, Neelima R. 1954 births Living people American women botanists Botanical Society of America University of California, Davis faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American botanists 21st-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists Indian emigrants to the United States People from New Delhi University of Lucknow alumni