3^rd International Conference of Agricultural Sciences

Chief Guest

Professor Yang Zongkai, is the President of Central China Normal University, Wuhan , China Vice President (Scientific Research and Graduate Studies) of CCNU from February 2004 to September 2011; President of CCNU since 2011.

Key note speaker

Dr. Nigel Poole is currently contributing as a reader in Development Policy, Centre for Development, Environment and Policy (CeDEP) of SOAS, University of London, UK. Originally he gained expertised in the fields of Natural Sciences and Agricultural Extension and subsequently changed his scope into ‘socioeconomics’. His teaching is mainly focused on marketing, business and knowledge management. Since 2004 he has supervised and jointly supervised 13 PhD students to completion, among others for which he has been co-supervisor.

Dr. Poole has obtained his BSc in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Nottingham in 1977. In 1978 and 1992, he has obtained master degrees in Agricultural Extension (Reading) and Agricultural Economics (London). He has obtained his PhD from the University of London in 1999.

Over the course of his research arena, he has published more than 14 book chapters, 55 publications in refereed journals. He has contributed to around 17 commissioned reports and conference proceedings since 1996. From 2004 to 2015, he held the principle principal investigator and co-investigator positions in 25 research projects. Currently he contributes as the co-investigator of DFID Research Programme Consortium, titled ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan’, with particular responsibility for value chains and for the work in Afghanistan.

Dr. Nigel Poole is an outstanding scientist who extended his contribution to the scientific community as an associate editor, PhD examiner, reviewer for the peer-reviewed journals, and research grant reviewer. He also holds the positions in numbers of professional and academic bodies.

Key note speaker - Students sessions

Prof. Ajith de Alwis completed his Ph.D. at University of Cambridge, UK post completing his B.Sc. (Eng) degree at the University of Moratuwa. He also has an MBA from Post Graduate Institute of Management (PIM) of University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He is a Professor at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Moratuwa and is also the Director of the University of Moratuwa-Cargills Food Process Development Incubator. Served as the Chairman of Engineering Research Unit (ERU) of University of Moratuwa from 2005-7. He was also the Science team leader for Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC) from its inception in 2008 to 2011, and Chairman of the National nanotechnology committee at NSF from 2011-2012. He is currently the Project Director of recently instituted Coordinating Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI) Sri Lanka.

Special Guest

Prof (Dr) S.P. Raj is Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University, USA and has served as senior associate dean. He was also a tenured professor of marketing at Cornell University, USA and a visiting faculty at Northwestern University. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies.

Special Guest

Professor, Yang Gaungfu, was appointed as the Dean of School of Chemistry of CCNU in March 2002 and the Director of MOE Key Laboratory of Pesticide & Chemical Biology since 2003 and Dean of the College of Science and Technology of CCNU since November 2013, and Associate Vice President since January, 2014.

Special Guest

Dr K Rathnam is the Managing Director of Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited in Anand popularly known as Amul Dairy

Ratnam holds a doctorate in food and nutrition, and had joined Amul in 1995 as deputy manager (product development). After a brief stint with a multinational firm as country head of quality assurance, he joined back Amul as general manager in the year 2007.