Prof. M. S. Swaminathan

Prof. M. S. Swaminathan holds the UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology at the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India. A plant geneticist by training with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, Prof. Swaminathan's contributions to the agricultural renaissance of India have led to his being widely referred to as the scientific leader of the Green Revolution movement. His advocacy of sustainable agriculture makes him an acknowledged world leader in the field of sustainable food security. He was Chairman of the UN Science Advisory Committee set up in 1980 to take follow-up action on the Vienna Plan of Action. He has also served as Independent Chairman of the FAO Council and President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. The International Association of Women and Development conferred on him the first international award for significant contributions to promoting the knowledge, skill, and technological empowerment of women in agriculture and for his pioneering role in mainstreaming gender considerations in agriculture and rural development. Prof. Swaminathan was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1971, the Albert Einstein World Science Award in 1986, the first World Food Prize in 1987, the Volvo Environment Prize in 1999, the UNESCO Ghandi Gold Medal in 1999, and the Franklin D Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award in 2000. He is a Fellow of many leading scientific academies including the Royal Society of London and the US National Academy of Sciences. Prof. Swaminathan has received 43 honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the world. TIME magazine has acclaimed him as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century.