Young Woman Scientist Award for Professor

Coimbatore: M.P. Divya, Associate Professor (Forestry), Department of Agro-forestry of Forest College and Research Institute, a constituent college of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University at Mettupalayam, has been awarded the `Tamil Nadu Young Woman Scientist Award 2006 (Agricultural Sciences)'.

Ms. Divya received the State Government award from State Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudi recently at a function held at the Science City, Chennai. The award was in recognition of her research contribution in the field of agro-forestry for the last ten years.

She had discovered that the combination of Ailanthus with cowpea and sorghum, and Simaruba with cowpea and green gram were the best suitable combinations to serve as agro-forestry models for dry lands of Tamil Nadu.

Ms. Divya had also discovered that Ailanthus with fodder cowpea and Stylosanthus combination was the best-suited agro-forestry model for the marginal lands of Tamil Nadu.

She is currently working on an agro-forestry system based on tree-borne oil seeds and another one on agro-forestry based integrated farming system, both under All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Agro-forestry, sponsored by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi. Ms. Divya is already a recipient a many awards. She has received the "Dr. Venkataraman Medal" for best student in Ph. D. in Forestry in 1997. She has also received the `Best Scientist' award in agro-forestry for the year 2001, and the State Government's `Best Environmental Management Award' from the Department of Environment in 2003.

Young Woman Scientist Award for Professor