Lekh Raj Batra
| Lekh Raj Batra | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 26, 1929 |
| Died | May 20, 1999 (aged 69) |
| Scientific career | |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | L.R.Batra |
Lekh Raj Batra (November 26, 1929 – May 20, 1999) was a distinguished mycologist and linguist. He studied the symbiotic relationships of fungi and beetles focusing on ambrosia beetles and fungi, bio-systematics of hemiascomycetes and discomycetes and fungal diseases.
Batra was born in Nawan Jandan, a village near the Thar Desert in Western Punjab, British India. He has two sisters and two brothers. His family suffered the ethnic violence following the partition of British India, in that he lost all the relatives from his mother’s side. His penniless family moved to Punjab, India after partition. There he began his interest in mushrooms as he hunted the hills for edible ones to feed his family.
Batra attended high school in Lahore, Pakistan. He was the first member of his family to attend school. He earned his Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees with Honors in Botany from Panjab University, Chandigarh as a President of India scholar. In 1956, he moved to the United States of America as a student and got his Doctorate in Botany from Cornell University in 1958 under Richard P. Korf.
Batra served as a lecturer for one year at the Deshbandhu College in Delhi before moving to the US. He also served in the Indian army. After graduating from Cornell University, he started teaching Botany at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia where he met Suzanne W. Tubby, his future wife. He briefly worked for the Indian government in 1960’s. He returned to the United States and joined the University of Kansas as a research associate while his wife was working on her doctorate in entomology there. Batra later became an assistant and associate professor, working on the symbiotic relationship of ambrosia fungi and beetles. In 1963, he became a US citizen. After his wife graduated in 1967, they moved to Beltsville, Maryland where he joined federal government’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and became a senior scientist and research leader. In 1986, he served as science advisor to the director of Beltsville. He retired in 1994. After his retirement, he served as coordinator of the International Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, a UNESCO project aimed at providing information regarding food and agriculture for developing countries.
...
Wikipedia