Before joining Cranfield University, Dr Vinod Kumar was a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow working at the EPSRC/BBSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC) at University of Nottingham, UK. Prior to this, he worked as Post-Doctoral Fellow in France, South Korea and the United Kingdom. His primary skills spans across multidisciplinary research domains such as Biochemical Engineering, Microbial Fermentations, Industrial Biotechnology, Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology. He has worked on different biological systems; fungal, yeast and bacterial. He is a seasoned researcher whose expertise lies in the development of low cost, energy efficient and sustainable bioprocesses for production of biofertilizers, biopesticides, biofuels and biochemicals.
Dr Kumar qualified Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) in October 2020 and is a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA). He earned his M.Sc. (Chemistry) and PhD (Biochemical Engineering & Biotechnology) degree from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), which is among the top five engineering institutes in India. He graduated in B.Sc (Hons) Chemistry from Hindu College, University of Delhi, India and was ranked first. Dr Kumar has qualified national as well as international level competition with top ranks. He qualified Marie Curie Fellowship with an overall score of 97.1/100. He qualified Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) examination in Chemistry (All India rank 4th with 99.77 percentile in GATE 2002) as well as Life Sciences (All India rank 1st with 99.99 percentile in GATE 2005). He also qualified joint CSIR-UGC (India) examination three times and two times secured position among top 20% awardees.