Brief Bio
Dr B Meenakumari is the Chairman of Research Advisory Committee of ICAR-CIFRI, pursuing initiatives in societal applications in fisheries research and committed to the conservation of bioresources and their sustainable use in the country. She is the former Chairperson of NBA, Chennai under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. She was Deputy Director General (Fisheries) of ICAR, New Delhi prior to joining NBA. She is the first woman scientist to occupy this prestigious position.
Earlier to this, Dr Meenakumari, who has more than three decades of service in ICAR, was the Director of ICAR-CIFT, Cochin. Her areas of research include development of newer fishing gear for coastal and deep sea fishing, conservation of fishery resources, upgradation of gear systems for reservoirs and responsible fishing, introduction of eco-friendly fishing methods, pollution monitoring, environment impact assessment, marine corrosion, and bio-fouling. In all her research programmes and projects, gender mainstreaming was an inevitable component. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like Young Scientist Award of Kerala Science and Technology (1989), Women and Technology Innovation Award (2007), Panjab Rao Deshmukh Agricultural Scientist Award (2002), VASVIK Award (2003), Marie Curie Mahila Vijnana Puraskar (2010), R C Dalela Oration Award (2009), Dr.M.S.Randhawa Memorial Award (2012) and Society of Fisheries Technologist Award (2015). She has been conferred D.Sc by Vidyasagar University (2016), West Bengal for her study on the ‘Innovations in Fishing Technology’. She has made significant contributions as a scientific administrator and in promoting scientific research through both publications and outreach programmes in the field of fisheries and biodiversity conservation. She has more than 150 research publications to her credit.
