Parag Chitnis

Associate Director for Programs & Acting Associate Director of Operations, National Institute of Food and Agriculture | United States

Acting Director Parag Chitnis is a key official of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Parag was appointed in July 2020. He leads strategic oversight and implementation of NIFA’s programs, which invest $1.75 billion for research and extension activities in food and agricultural sciences. Before his current appointment, Parag was NIFA’s Associate Director responsible for the agency’s Kansas City staff and functions.

Parag came to NIFA in 2015 as the Deputy Director for Institute of Food Production and Sustainability. Prior to joining NIFA, he was the Director for the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). At both NIFA and NSF, he has led initiatives at the interface of different disciplines, including biological sciences, agricultural sciences, physical sciences, computer science, engineering, and social sciences. He was a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology at Iowa State University, and was an assistant professor in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University. He has authored over 110 peer-reviewed or invited publications in the areas of plant biochemistry, photosynthesis, computational biology, and proteomics. He has mentored over 50 undergraduate students, MS and PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, and AAAS fellows.

Parag has a B.S. in botany/plant breeding from the Konkan Agricultural University in India, an M.S. in genetics and plant breeding from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, and Ph.D. in biology from the University of California at Los Angeles.