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Nirmala Chongtham
Nirmala Chongtham (born 1961 in Manipur, India) is presently a professor in the department of Botany, Panjab University, Chandigarh India. She has been working in bamboo shoot nutrition since the last 20 years and in recognition of her work in bamboo, World Bamboo Organization, USA appointed her as a World Bamboo Ambassador from India in 2015 and as an ambassador, is still continuing her work in promoting bamboo for environment and socioeconomic development.

Early Life and Education
Chongtham Nirmala, daughter child of C.I. Singh (Father) and Kumudini Devi (Mother) was brought up in Wahengbam Leikai, Imphal, Manipur, India. She did her schooling from Little Flower School, a Catholic Christian Minority school in her home town and completed her bachelor’s degree from Dhanamanjuri College of Science, Manipur University, Imphal, Manipur. She completed her master’s degree from Kurukshetra University in 1986 in the field of botany and also awarded the doctor of philosophy from the same university in the year 1991 under the title “Investigation on male sterile pea”. She did her Post-doctoral in Plant Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering from Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Hannover, Germany, through DAAD fellowship and she is also a recipient of a fellowship from DSE, Germany to work in Biotechnology in the DSE Centre in Leipzig in collaboration with University of Hannover, Humboldt University, Berlin and Max Plank Institute, Koln, Germany.

Academic Career
After her Ph.D, she started working as an assistant professor in the Department of Botany, Kurukshetra University from 1991 till 2000. In the year 2000, she was selected as associate professor in the Department of Botany, Panjab University, Chandigarh and got promoted to Professor in the year 2008. She has guided more than 17 Ph.D. students.

Research Areas
Her research areas were on Cytogenetics, Molecular Biology, Biotechnology, however since the last 20 years, she has been working in bamboo shoot nutrition. Born in Manipur, she has surveyed most of the bamboo growing places in India focusing mainly on the North Eastern states which is the bamboo paradise of India and also has high consumption of bamboo shoots. Nutrients and phytochemicals in shoots of more than 25 bamboo species have been worked out and phytomodulatory properties of shoots and leaves in some non-communicable diseases have been evaluated using animal models. Food products fortified with bamboo shoots have also been developed by her group.

She is closely associated with the World Bamboo Organization, USA and in recognition of her work in bamboo, she was appointed as World Bamboo Ambassador from India in 2015 and as an ambassador, is still continuing her work in promoting bamboo for environment and socioeconomic development. She worked as Chair of the Technical Committee, World Bamboo Congress (WBC) 2015 in Korea, Co-Chair in WBC Mexico, 2018. She was the Co-coordinator of the 3rd World Bamboo Workshop held in Manipur, India in 2019. She is widely travelled being invited to give lectures in North America, South America, Europe, Germany, and Asian countries like Thailand, Korea and Vietnam. She is a recipient of many project grants in India for research on Bamboo such as University Grant Commission, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology and Ministry of Food Processing Industries. She has also been awarded a grant from the Ned Jaquith Foundation and American Bamboo Society, USA to expand her research on bamboo.