Appa Rao Podile

Appa Rao Podile (born 3 March 1960) is an Indian scientist, educator and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad. He was awarded the Millennium Plaques of Honour for his achievements in Life Sciences by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in 2017.

A police case was filed against him under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against in the case of suicide of Rohith Vemula.

Education Podile obtained his MSc, and then completed his Ph.D. in 1987 from the Sardar Patel University in Gujarat. He was a postdoctoral fellow (1998) of the Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan and subsequently was a visiting scientist (2000), at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica. Podile also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Münster, Germany in 2006. In 2015, he became the vice-chancellor of the University of Hyderabad where he served till 2021.

Awards and recognition Fellow, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi 2017 Millennium Plaques of Honour, Indian Science Congress Association, Jan 2017 (presented by Prime Minister of India) President Elect, Association of Microbiologists of India, 2017 Elected Fellow, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 2012 Tata Innovation Fellowship, Department of Biotechnology, April 2014 Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Jan 2014