Conference chairs & committee

Prof. Dr. Samih Abubaker

Former Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Technology,
Al-Balqa Applied University,
Jordan.

Profile

Professor Samih Abubaker is a farming systems and sustainability specialist. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Technology at Al-Balqa` Applied University in Jordan from September 9, 2012 to September 7, 2016. He has over 30 years of experience in vegetable production, farming systems, sustainability, resources management, food security and poverty reduction. He received several short visits to universities around the world as a visiting fellow on teaching and development issues. Example universities include Rutgers, Washington State, Rostock, Technical Munich, Humboldt Berlin, and Bologna. He is an editorial board member and reviewer in several scientific journals, evaluator of mega research proposals for several national and international donors. Samih was a member of the Management Committee of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action FA 1105. He is serving as the chairman of the agro-environmental committee of the Jordan Society for Scientific Research (JSSR), a member of several national committees including organic farming, the national committee to oversee the school curriculum and others. He participated in more than forty international conferences and chaired the 11th Arab plant protection congress held in Amman, 2014. He has over sixty scientific publications and was awarded many prestigious medals and distinct shields for his outstanding contributions. Finally, Prof. Abubaker is always pleased to share knowledge and cultural integration to bring science and practice of sustainable agriculture a step forward.

Prof. Saman Seneweera

Senior Professor
University of Ruhuna Sri Lanka & former Director of National Institute of Fundamental Studies
Sri Lanka.

Profile

Professor Seneweera is a distinguished academic with over 30 years of extensive experience in research, teaching, and academic administration within multiple countries including Australia, Japan, the United States of America, and Sri Lanka. His research specialization is in molecular plant physiology, and his research effort is dedicated to enhancing crop adaptation to extreme environmental conditions and bolstering resilience against the challenges posed by climate change, including high levels of CO2, heat, drought, salt stress, nutrient deficiencies, and toxicities.
Throughout his illustrious career, Professor Seneweera has significantly contributed to advancing scientific knowledge on the understanding of fundamental mechanisms of how crop plants respond to future climate conditions. His research efforts have also led to developing and deploying stress-tolerant cultivars and effective system-based yield and resource management tools. Professor Seneweera’s leadership acumen is evident through his tenure in various pivotal roles, including Director (CEO/CFO-NIFS) and Head of Stress Biology (NIFS-Sri Lanka), Chair Professor, Program Leader (NIFS) discipline leader (USQ, Australia), and Lead Plant Physiologist (the University of Melbourne).
Professor Seneweera earned his PhD in Plant Physiology from Western Sydney University, Australia, beginning his remarkable academic journey. With a prolific scholarly output, he has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books, reflecting his profound impact on plant science. Notably, Professor Seneweera’s research standing is underlined by his impressive H-index of 48 and close to 8000 citations. According to Stanford University’s ranking, he has consistently ranked in the top 2% of scientists worldwide for the past five years.

In addition to his research and leadership roles, Professor Seneweera actively contributes to the scientific community as a member of multiple editorial boards and scientific organizations. His outstanding contributions have been recognized through numerous awards and accolades for excellence and leadership. Furthermore, Professor Seneweera’s commitment to nurturing future talent is evident through his supervision of over 30 PhD candidates across different world regions. He stands among the top 1% of scientists in the agricultural domain, exemplifying his profound impact and dedication to advancing the field.

Assoc. Prof. Siva K. Balasundram

Head of Department of Agriculture Technology
Faculty of Agriculture
Universiti Putra Malaysia
Malaysia.

Profile

Assoc Prof Dr Siva K Balasundram currently heads the Department of Agriculture Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). He also serves as Country Representative of the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) and Executive Committee Member of the Asian Conference on Precision Agriculture (ACPA)

Siva earned his BS (Agronomy) and MS (Soil Chemistry) degrees from UPM in 1994 and 1997, respectively. In 1999, he was awarded a UPM scholarship to pursue a doctorate in Precision Agriculture at the University of Minnesota under the guidance of Prof Dr Pierre C Robert, who pioneered the development of Precision Agriculture in the USA and many other parts of the world. In September of 2003, he earned his PhD and began working as a Lecturer at the Department of Agriculture Technology, UPM. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007 and to Associate Professor in 2012.

Siva is a passionate teacher and researcher. His work quality is reflected in his teaching and research engagements and outputs. He has received encouraging scores in teaching evaluation by students (3-year average of 4.83 out of 5.00). He has brought in research grants in the amount of RM1,068,202 from nine (9) different projects over the past 18 years. He has authored/co-authored a total of seventy three (73) journal articles, forty five (45) proceeding papers, seven (7) book chapters and five (5) articles in professional magazines. He currently registers an Google Scholar h-index of 21. Additionally, he has two (2) copyrights and one (1) patent to his credit. He has also led twelve (15) consultancies and built several industry linkages as a scientific advisor/resource person.

Siva specializes in Precision Agriculture and has expanded his research interests into Digital Agriculture and Smart Farming.

Conference Convener

Conference Secretariat

Scientific committee members

The Scientific Committee consists of the experts in the field from many different countries in the world. The Committee Members evaluate your abstracts and provide insights to improve those further. According to the final decision given by them, you would be able to process further tasks for attending the conference.