Ms. Devidutta Samantaray is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tirupati. She is working towards unveiling the epigenetic regulation of heat stress response and establishment of plant stress memory. Identification of principal regulators of plant stress response will pave a path towards the development of a feasible system for epigenetic breeding for crop improvement programs.
Ms. Samantaray holds a bachelor’s degree in botany from Nimapara Autonomous College, Puri, Odisha, and a master’s degree in botany from Utkal University, Odisha. She was awarded the Institute of Mathematics and Application scholarship by the Government of Odisha to pursue post-graduation studies in science, mathematics and biotechnology. She has qualified national level competitive exams including Joint CSIR-UGC JRF-NET, ICAR-NET and GATE.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Ms. Samantaray is identifying and elucidating the role(s) of small RNAs in regulating transgenerational stress-adaptive phenotypic plasticity in Arabidopsis thaliana. She hopes to be a scientific researcher in the field of plant epigenetics.