Dr. Sushmitha Baskarearned her M.Sc (1995, Gold medalist) and M.Phil in Environmental Science (1997) from Bharathiar University, Tamil Nadu and Ph.D. in Environmental Science (2002) from the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Haryana. She has an MA and PG Diploma in Distance Education from IGNOU, New Delhi; Diploma in German from Sprachenzentrum, Université De Fribourg, Switzerland. She is awarded with various national fellowships: CSIR (SRF, RA, Pool Scientist (SRA), UGC Dr. DS Kothari post doctoral fellowship and international fellowships: Swiss Scholarship to work at ETH, Zurich, Switzerland; Indo-Norwegian Grant to work at University of Bergen, Norway and Swedish Institute Fellowship to work at Stockholm University, Sweden. She has made significant contributions with 45 publications and is a science journalist for Current Science, Indian Academy of Sciences. Her interests include Environmental Science, Environmental Microbiology and Geomicrobiology. At IGNOU she is the Programme Coordinator for Ph.D. Environmental Science and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental and Occupational Health. Her best publications include: