简介
Dr. Saddam Hussain serves as an Associate Professor of Agronomy at University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF). He is the Dean/Vice Chairman of Confucius Institute, and head/lead of Crop Stress Physiology Lab, Biopolymer Research and Production Center, and Industrial Hemp Research Program at UAF. During his professional career, he made great recognitions in research, academia, and community services.
Till now, he has published over 220 refereed journal papers with cumulative IF of >1150 (h-index: 77, citations: >22500). He has been recognized with several international istinctions/awards in recent years including 2023-PAS Gold Medal in Applied Technology-Agricultural Sciences-age <40 (Salimuzzaman Siddiqui Prize), Top Cited Researcher-2024, and Top 100 highly Global Influential Researcher Award. He was the recipient of the “Research Productivity Award” in 2016 and 2017 from the PCST. The recognition of his research work is on the rise; he got the “Highly Cited Researcher” status by Clarivate/Web of Science continuously for the last three years (2021, 2022, 2023).
The research of Dr. Hussain is consistent with the various SDGs of United Nation, including SDG1, SDG2, SDG8, SDG13, and SDG15. His basic research focused on understanding the crop responses and tolerance mechanisms to individual and/or multiple stresses. He devised promising strategies for improving crop performance under sub-optimum conditions and suggested various novel plant tolerance indicators against salt, drought, submergence, heat, and metal stresses. His applied research is pertinent to the agricultural community and sector, focusing on addressing tangible issues via precise scientific research methods and teamwork; this is clearly reflected by his partnerships with over 20 industries, and he has organized more than 50 farmers' meetings in recent years. Dr. Hussain has availed several research grants of Rs. >880 million, mainly with international institutes and industries. To address the issues of water scarcity, land degradation, and low economic productivity, Dr. Hussain, for the first time developed the biodegradable superabsorbent polymers from the agricultural waste (rice straw, corn cob, saw dust), and has established the biopolymer research & production centre for large-scale production and commercialization.
Dr. Hussain is a pioneering leader in Pakistan’s industrial hemp research. He has maintained the germplasm repository for non-toxic hemp including local landraces and exotic material, screened diverse local landraces, optimized site-specific hemp agronomy, developed Indigenous processing techniques/machinery, and has established the complete value chains for fibre, food, feed, construction, and paper industry, in collaboration with different departments and industrial stakeholders.
Dr. Hussain established strong research collaboration globally. He has several honorary positions in various countries including Research Fellow at INTI International University, Malaysia; Director of the Silkroad Biohealth Agricultural Industry Alliance at Northwest A&F University, China; Research Advisor at Nanyang Academy of Sciences, Singapore; Adjunct Scientist at Yunnan University, China; and Distinguished/Adjunct Professor at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, KSA); this will be fruitful for the country in near future. In teaching, he has developed various under-and post-graduate courses related to plant physiology and agronomy. To date, he has supervised >100 postgraduate students as a major supervisor/ supervisory committee member. Currently, he is the only Pakistani, who is working as an Editor/Editorial board member of >10 SCI high impact journals, including Journal of Advanced Research (Q1, IF: 12.82, Elsevier), Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (Q1, IF: 7.12, Elsevier), Journal of Plant Growth Regulation (Q1, IF: 4.64, Springer), BMC Plant Biology (Q1, IF: 5.26, Springer), Food and Energy Security (Q1, IF: 4.67, Wiley), Plants (IF: 4.66), PeerJ - Life and Environment (IF: 3.06), AoB Plants (IF: 3.22, Oxford press), and Crop Science-CSSA (Q1, IF: 2.76, Wiley), which shows his commitment and repute in the scientific community.
