Ashwani Kumar, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Botany at the Metagenomics and Secretomics Research Laboratory of the University of Allahabad (A Central University), Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India. Before this, he worked at Dr Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya University, Sagar, India. His research focuses on plant-microbe interactions, metagenomics, lignocellulosic biofuels, and bioremediation. He is a life member and/or fellow of the Biotech Research Society India, the National Institute of Ecology, the International Society of Environmental Botanists in India, and the Linnean Society of London. He published many articles, book chapters, and one edited book. He is an editorial board member for several prestigious journals. He has been featured in the list of Top 2% Scientists Worldwide 2023 by Stanford University. He has earned several awards and fellowships.

Ayman El Sabagh, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Siirt University, Turkey, where he is working on sustainability, crop productivity, and stress management of field crops under the current climatic era. He has published more than 100 research and review papers in peer-reviewed reputed journals. He has also contributed many book chapters. Dr. El Sabagh graduated from Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt, and earned his PhD from the Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, Japan, under the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education channel program, where he contributed to studying the physiological approaches for enhancing the stress tolerance of crop plants. He also performed research at Cukurova University, Turkey. Recently, he was awarded inclusion in the Talented Young Scientist Program (TYSP) at the Crop Research Institute of Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China.