I have joined in this lab at Berkeley in June 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher. My research aims to unravel how diversified farming systems affect soil microbiome communities, and their relationship with soil-based ecosystem services. Agricultural intensification degrades soil health by negatively impacting soil biodiversity and soil-based ecosystem services. Farm diversification practices like cover cropping and crop rotation could restore soil health by building soil organic matter and influencing the soil microbiome. I hypothesize that farm diversification will increase soil microbiome diversity and activity and provide better ecosystem services (e.g., soil carbon accrual a and nitrogen supply and retention). Understanding how diversification practices affect the abundance and richness of cropping-sensitive microbes, and in turn their relationship with key soil-based ecosystem services, provide guidance for restoring soil health in agroecosystems.

Before joining this lab, I worked as JSPS postdoctoral fellow at Plant Microbiology Lab (PI: Prof. Shin Okazaki), at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology for two years. I used rice as the model crop plant to investigate the dynamics of soil, rhizosphere, and phyllosphere microbiomes from healthy and diseased plants and functional signature using metagenomics approach. I leveragaged genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics techniques to identify microbial biocontrol agents and investigate the mechanisms underpinning the biocontrol efficacy and stability in the field application. During my PhD research at the Western Australian State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (SABC) at Murdoch University, Australia I worked on fungal endophyties of wild Nicotiana benthamiana plants. My dissertation focused on endophytic mycobiome and virome from native Australian Nicotiana species and their roles in plant drought tolerance.

I hold a Master’s degree in Plant Pathology and a Bachelor degree in Agriculture from Bangladesh Agriculture University where I also taught Plant Pathology before joining this lab.

I am father of a son and a daughter and like to play with them. I also like reading sceince, and history books.