Jyoti Prakash Tamang

Jyoti Prakash Tamang (16 November 1961 – 29 April 2025) was an Indian food microbiologist, and the Senior Professor in Microbiology of the Sikkim Central University. His work centred on fermented foods and alcoholic beverages of the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and South East Asia.

Background Jyoti Prakash Tamang was born on 16 November 1961 in the mountain district of Darjeeling in the Indian state of West Bengal. He completed his schooling at Turnbull High School, Darjeeling in 1977 and class XII at the St Joseph's College, Darjeeling in 1979. His undergraduate education was at the Darjeeling Government College of North Bengal University from where he passed B.Sc. honours in 1982 and continued at the institution to earn an M.Sc. in microbiology in 1984, passing the examination winning a gold medal for academic excellence.

He started his career in 1986 as an associate professor at the department of botany of Sikkim Government College, Tadong where he worked until 2011. Simultaneously, he enrolled at North Bengal University for his doctoral studies; after securing a PhD in microbiology in 1992, he did his post-doctoral work at two institutions abroad during 1994–1995 — first at the National Food Research Institute, Tsukuba with a fellowship from the United Nations University-Kirin Brewery Company and, later, at the Institute of Hygiene and Toxicology, Karlsruhe, on a fellowship received from Volkswagen Foundation.

In 2011, he joined Central University Sikkim (CUS) as a member of faculty; he remained there throughout his life. He held various positions at the university, including those of an academic coordinator, the dean of the School of Life Sciences, the first registrar of the university, and a professor. He also served as the officiating vice-chancellor of the university. In between, he had a short stint at the Research Institute of Humanity and Nature of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Kyoto as a visiting professor during 2009–2010.

Legacy

Tamang's research focused on ethnic fermented foods and beverages of the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and other Asian countries, focusing on food antiquity and culture, gastronomy, metataxonomic, multi-omics approaches, starter culture development, food safety, probiotics, whole genome sequencing, nutrition, and health benefits. Tamang's findings have contributed to a paradigm shift from conventional microbial taxonomy to sequence-based taxonomy to study the micro- and mycobiomes of ethnic fermented foods and beverages of India.

He published seven books, including Himalayan Fermented Foods: Microbiology, Nutrition, and Ethnic Values, Ethnic fermented foods and alcoholic beverages of Asia, Fermented foods and beverages of the world, Health benefits of fermented foods and beverages, and Ethnic Fermented Foods and Alcoholic Beverages of India: Science History and Culture.

Awards and honours Tamang received the Women's Association Award of the United Nations University in 1996. He was elected as a Fellow of Biotech Research Society of India (2006), Fellow of Indian Academy of Microbiological Sciences (2010), Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (2013), Fellow of Indian National Science Academy (2022) and Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (2022). He received the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2010. He was International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)-Mountain Chair (2019-2022). Tamang was nominated as the Global Kimchi Ambassador by the World Institute of Kimchi of the Government of South Korea.

Selected bibliography

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