Rate My Professor Ravi Valluru

Dr. Ravi Valluru serves as Senior Lecturer in Crop Science within the School of Agri-Food Technology & Manufacturing at the University of Lincoln, where he is affiliated with the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology. His research employs multidisciplinary crop science approaches, emphasizing plant physiology, crop improvement, and plant phenotyping under abiotic stresses including heat, drought, and chilling. Core interests encompass primary metabolism, particularly water-soluble carbohydrates like fructans and sucrose derivatives, plant hormones such as ABA and ethylene, and their roles in stress responses. Valluru's work spans cereals like wheat, sorghum, maize, rice, and pearl millet, contributing to genetic analyses for biofortification, yield stability, and stress tolerance. He has authored or co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed publications, accumulating more than 2,400 citations. Notable contributions include "Plant fructans in stress environments: emerging concepts and future prospects" (Journal of Experimental Botany, 2008), "Sucrose, sucrosyl oligosaccharides, and oxidative stress: scavenging and salvaging?" (Journal of Experimental Botany, 2009), "Fructan and hormone connections" (Frontiers in Plant Science, 2015), "Genetic dissection of grain zinc concentration in spring wheat for mainstreaming biofortification in CIMMYT wheat breeding" (Frontiers in Plant Science, 2018), and "Phenotyping stomatal closure by thermal imaging for GWAS of water use efficiency in field-grown maize" (Plant Physiology, 2021).

Valluru obtained his PhD in Plant Sciences from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, focusing on water-soluble carbohydrates in wheat species and their adaptive significance under chilling stress. Following his doctorate, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at INRA in France in 2010. He then advanced his career at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico as part of the Global Wheat Program, where he conducted research on wheat physiology, ethylene signaling under heat stress, grain zinc biofortification, and evolutionary genetics of stress traits. Since joining the University of Lincoln, he has served as Principal Investigator on projects related to sustainable agriculture, robotics in farming, and net-zero agriculture systems. His accolades include a Doctoral Fellowship from the Baden-Württemberg State and University of Hohenheim (2007), conference travel grants from the New Phytologist Trust (2008) and The Rank Prize Funds (2015), and the INRA postdoctoral fellowship (2010). Valluru's research impacts crop breeding strategies for climate resilience and nutritional enhancement, fostering collaborations across international institutions.