Biographical Sketch Prof. Amal Kumar Mondal is a distinguished academician and researcher in the field of Botany with specialization in Angiosperm Taxonomy. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Burdwan University and was awarded a Ph.D. from Visva-Bharati University. He qualified national level examinations such as CSIR-NET and GATE and began his professional career as a Lecturer in Botany under the West Bengal Education Service at Darjeeling Government College. Later he served at Barasat Government College before joining Vidyasagar University as Reader and Head of the Department of Botany. With more than 34 years of teaching and 38 years of research experience, Prof. Mondal is presently serving as Professor and Head, Department of Botany & Forestry, Vidyasagar University. He has held several key administrative positions including HOD on multiple occasions, Ph.D. Secretary, and member of Board of Studies in various universities. He is also the Coordinator of UGC DRS SAP and DBT BOOST programmes. Prof. Mondal has guided 22 scholars leading to the award of Ph.D. degrees and has successfully completed six major research projects along with two large institutional projects. He has published more than 250 research papers in reputed national and international journals and authored two textbooks and several book chapters. His significant contributions include discovery of four new plant species from Southwest Bengal, establishment of a Botanical Garden and a Digital Herbarium at Vidyasagar University, and gene sequencing of 50 medicinal plants with accession numbers from NCBI. He is an elected Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, Indian Association of Angiosperm Taxonomy, and Society of Environmental and Biotic Research. Prof. Mondal continues to contribute actively to teaching, research, biodiversity conservation, and academic leadership at national and international levels.

Prof. Amal Kumar Mondal is a Senior Professor of Botany and an eminent plant taxonomist with over 25 years of experience in teaching, research, and academic administration. He currently serves as Professor and Head, Department of Botany & Forestry, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. He is widely recognized for his contributions to plant taxonomy, biodiversity documentation, and conservation biology, particularly in eastern and south-western India, and has played a key role in academic leadership, curriculum development, and research capacity building. Prof. Mondal earned his Ph.D. in Botany from Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, as a CSIR Fellow. His doctoral research focused on an eco-floristic survey of Burdwan district with special reference to allergenic plants, integrating floristics, palynology, and ecological analysis. He is UGC–CSIR NET qualified, has also qualified GATE, and holds a Master’s degree in Botany with specialization in Angiosperm Taxonomy, along with formal training in education and computer applications. His areas of specialization include plant taxonomy and classical systematics, biosystematics and evolutionary botany, molecular taxonomy and DNA barcoding, chemotaxonomy, palynology, ethnobotany, floristics, phytogeography, bryophyte taxonomy, and biodiversity conservation. His research combines classical taxonomic approaches with molecular and interdisciplinary tools to address issues of plant diversity, evolution, and conservation. With extensive field experience across lateritic zones, coastal belts, forest margins, wetlands, and tribal landscapes of South-West Bengal, Prof. Mondal has conducted significant research on endangered, medicinal, parasitic, and invasive plant species. He has successfully coordinated major funded projects including UGC-DRS-SAP (Phase I & II) and DBT-BOOST, contributing substantially to research infrastructure development. He was instrumental in revitalizing the departmental herbarium, now enlisted in the CSIR Handbook of Herbaria, and in re-establishing the Medicinal Plants Garden at Vidyasagar University. Prof. Mondal has published extensively in reputed national and international journals indexed in SCI, Scopus, and UGC-CARE, including Scientific Reports, Carbohydrate Polymers, and Current Science. He has authored book chapters and deposited several DNA barcode sequences in NCBI GenBank. Notably, he has discovered four new bryophyte species from South-West Bengal, highlighting the hidden diversity and conservation significance of non-vascular plants. A dedicated mentor, he has supervised postgraduate and doctoral research and continues to inspire students toward research, teaching, and environmental careers. His academic vision emphasizes integrating classical taxonomy with modern molecular tools, strengthening herbarium-based research, and conserving plant biodiversity through scientific documentation and community engagement.