SJ

Siljo Joseph

Also known as: S. Joseph

Kerala Forest Research Institute, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Botanical Survey of India

ORCID iD 0000-0002-8027-7936
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About

Dr Siljo Joseph is a Scientist-B at KSCSTE-Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), Kerala. He completed his graduation in Botany from Mahatma Gandhi University (Kerala) and post-graduation in Plant Sciences from Bharathiar University (Tamil Nadu) as a Rank holder in both. He started his research on lichens in 2009 with his master’s dissertation on “Studies on the lichen flora of the Nilgiri hills, Tamil Nadu”. After completing post-graduation, he got selected as a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) in the “Flora of India Project” by the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Govt . of India. He joined BSI in 2010 under the guidance of Dr G.P. Sinha and started revisionary studies on the lichen family Roccellaceae sensu lato. In the meantime, he registered for PhD at Bharathiar University under the guidance of Prof. V.S. Ramachandran and revised the lichen genus Opegrapha sensu lato in India. On the completion of JRF in 2012, he continued as Senior Research Fellow (SRF) and Ex-SRF in the Flora of India Project till April 2016 in BSI. He was awarded PhD in Botany (Lichenology) from Bharathiar University in 2016. In 2017, he was awarded National Postdoctoral Fellowship (N-PDF) by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), New Delhi. He joined as a Postdoc at the Lichenology Laboratory of CSIR-NBRI under the mentorship of Dr Sanjeeva Nayaka. During the Postdoc, He got awarded the Indian National Science Academy’s (INSA) prestigious DST INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship [funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India], and joined as DST-INSPIRE Faculty at CSIR-NBRI from May 2019 onwards, now transferred to KFRI. He was also recognized as an Honorary Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Biological Sciences in the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Govt. of India to the teaching and research objectives of AcSIR students. He received the prestigious Dharani Awasthi Award (2021) for the prominent young lichen researcher by International Association for Lichenology (IAL) during 9th International Lichenological Symposium (IAL9) at Brazil.
His main research focuses on biogeography, conservation, ecology, phylogeny, systematics and e-monography of the lichens and lichenicolous fungi in India. For his contributions to Arthoniales a species of Synarthonia has been dedicated to him as “Synarthonia josephiana Van den Broeck & Ertz” from Madgascar. He is also interested in the development of web-based applications and programs on the identification of lichens. As a part of postdoc research, he and his teammates created a YouTube Channel named “lichens of India” (www.youtube.com/lichensofindia) for disseminating knowledge about different aspects of lichens to student researchers and the general public. He also developed a database for the lichen group Arthoniales in India, which can be accessed through www.arthoniales.in.

Employment

  • Kerala Forest Research Institute Scientist-B
    2022 - Present
  • Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India INSPIRE Faculty
    2019 - 2024

Education

  • CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute Post Doctoral Degree
    2017 - 2019
  • Botanical Survey of India Junior Research Fellow & Senior Research Fellow
    2010 - 2016

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (52)