Utkal University Archives

Dr. Susanta Behura is an assistant professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in the Division of Animal Sciences of the University of Missouri, Columbia. He has a BSc in mathematics, an MSc in biotechnology, and a PhD in life sciences. His postdoctoral training was at Purdue University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has a decade’s experience in animal health and reproduction research at the University of Missouri. His lab leverages multi-omics data using transcriptomics, epigenetics, metabolomics, proteomics, and single-cell genomics assays to perform data-intensive bioinformatics research in the areas of reproduction, development, and health.

Dr. Behura has a demonstratable track record of conducting research independently as well as collaboratively. He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and these have been cited extensively. His current h-index is 37 and i10-index, 82. In the last five years, his lab has published several papers in Gene, Placenta, Cells, iScience, and FASEB J which have provided new insights into the role of placenta in the development of fetal brain in animals. Dr. Behura has also been actively involved in writing collaborative and independent grant proposals. At Missouri, he has developed and taught a graduate-level course, and has also mentored three graduate students and a senior research specialist.

A reviewer for many high-impact factor journals, Dr. Behura is an editorial board member of several journals such as Scientific Reports and Systems Biology in Reproductive Medicine. He has also served as a grant reviewer and panelist for agencies like the U.S. National Science Foundation, French National Research Agency, German Research Foundation, Wellcome Trust, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Israel’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Space, and Spain’s “la Caixa” Foundation.

Dr. Behura’s Fulbright-Kalam project is a combined teaching and research endeavor at Utkal University, India. His research project, called “Advancing Genomics Research and Education on Climate-resilient Animal Agriculture in India”, is studying epigenetic changes in the blood of dairy cows to understand how they cope with summer heat. The teaching component is providing students an overview of emerging applications of genomics in climate resilience research in animal agriculture.

Mr. Jason Strother is a multimedia journalist and educator. As an independent reporter, Mr. Strother has filed stories from dozens of datelines for media outlets like NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC World Service. Much of his career was spent covering affairs on the Korean Peninsula and he sent dispatches from both sides of the DMZ. But in 2021, Mr. Strother returned to New Jersey to shift his reporting to stories that concern disability and accessibility, a beat that is often ignored or misunderstood in mainstream journalism. He then launched Lens15 Media, a news agency that focuses on the disability angle in every story. Mr. Strother’s work is informed by his own experience of having a low-vision impairment.

Mr. Strother is also an adjunct professor at Montclair State University, where he has created several electives in the School of Communication and Media. That includes a course on how people with disabilities are portrayed in the entertainment industry, journalism, and the social media. He has also been involved in cross-campus initiatives to make media and the arts more accessible. Mr. Strother holds an MA in international relations from the Brussels School of International Studies and a BA in broadcasting from Montclair State University. He has also earned a certificate degree in entrepreneurial journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Mr. Strother has won grants from the National Geographic Society, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, and the NJ Civic Information Consortium.

People with disabilities are disproportionately affected by climate change and disasters. Approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population has a physical, sensory or developmental impairment and as instances of severe weather phenomena increase, so do the risks posed to this already vulnerable community. In his Fulbright project, Mr. Strother is examining how emergency systems can be made more accessible to people with disabilities. During his sojourns in India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, he has been searching for ways to bring down barriers that limit this population’s inclusion in responses to catastrophic events.