Dr (Mrs) Pushpa Kharb joined the position of Director (Technical), CPB on 2nd June, 2011. Before joining this position, she was working as Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. She did her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Genetics (with specialization in Plant Tissue Culture) from CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. She was a Rockefeller Foundation post-doctoral Fellow for two years at Texas A & M University, Texas, USA and worked on rice biotechnology. She used fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques to physically locate single copy transgenes in rice chromosomes. She has been working in the area of Plant Biotechnology for the last twenty one years. Her major research achievements include development of Bt chickpea plants, SCAR markers for early sex identification in the dioecious plant species date-palm and jojoba, and a novel culture medium for plant tissue culture. She has filed six patents in the area of plant biotechnology. She has been teaching various courses of Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology to undergraduate and post graduate students in the University and received ICAR sponsored Best Teacher award for the year 2004-05. She is member of several academic societies and has published research papers in journals of national and international repute