Biography:

Dr. Muhammad Shahzad has been engaged in the teaching and research profession for the last 11 years and currently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus. He was awarded a fully-funded scholarship for Doctor of Philosophy in Germany from April 2008- March 2012 by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) and Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) of Germany. He was awarded Ph.D. degree from Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany in 2012. During Ph.D. titled, Growth-related changes in subcellular ion and protein patterns in maize and field bean leaves under salt stress, the apoplastic approach having difficulties in setting up the specifications to design the gel electrophoresis (GE), atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS), and ion chromatography (IC), but he managed to find a solution for the extraction of maximum apoplastic proteins and ion measurements. He had engineered efficient techniques for making 2D gels using the subcellular apoplastic proteins. The results obtained during his Ph.D. studies led to several publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is a former member of the German Society of Plant Nutrition. His major research interests are Plant Environmental Stress Physiology, Plant Nutrition, Stress Tolerance in Plants, Plant Proteomics, Nutritional Physiology, Exploitation of genetic variability of agronomic crops against abiotic stresses, particularly nutrient deficiency stress. He did Bachelor and Master from the Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan (2001-2007). He is leading the research group “Sustainable Agriculture” in the Department. He has participated and presented his research work in several national and international conferences. Dr. Muhammad Shahzad has established the Plant Environmental Stress Physiology lab. He has 30 publications in peer-reviewed national and international journals. He also published two book chapters. He was awarded with outstanding contribution in reviewing Certificate, 2017 (Elsevier). He is HEC Approved Supervisor since 2012 and has supervised 10 MS students while 2 Ph.D. students are under his supervision. He has won research grants of 5.2 million PKR, including two NRPU projects which were awarded by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. In recognition of his excellent research work and teaching, he was awarded research productivity awards for 3 times, appreciation letters for 2 times, and awards for winning a research grant 2 times by COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus. He has been assigned several academic/ official duties in campus. He is an executive member and focal person of GAAC (German Alumni Association of COMSATS) Abbottabad.