Veena Tandon

Veena Tandon is an Indian parasitologist, academic and a NASI senior scientist at Biotech Park, Lucknow. She is a former professor of zoology at the North Eastern Hill University and serves as the chief instigator for the North-East India Helminth Parasite Information Database. She is known for her researches on worm infections afflicting the animals of food value and is the author of two books and several articles on parasitology.

The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2016, for her contributions to science.

Biography Veena Tandon was born on 7 September 1949 in Kashipur in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. After retirement, she joined Biotech Park, Lucknow to continue her helminthological researches on a platinum jubilee fellowship of the National Academy of Sciences, India and is the NASI senior scientist of the institution. She is the principal investigator of the DIT - North-East Parasite Information Analysis Centre which is involved in the preparation of a North-East India Helminth Parasite Information Database (NEIHPID). Besides, she has authored two books, Pictorial Guide to Trematodes of Livestock and Poultry in India and Bamboo Flowering and Rodent Control. She is also a co-author of the Northeast India Helminth Parasite Information Database (NEIHPID): Knowledge Base for Helminth Parasites, a database on the parasite biodiversity of the region, and has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Government of India as well as the Task Force on Biotechnology of the Department of Science and Technology.

Awards and honors The National Academy of Sciences, India elected Tandon as a fellow in 1998 and she became an elected fellow of the Indian Society for Parasitology in 2005. She is also a fellow of the Zoological Society of India and the Helminthological Society of India and held the Chair in Taxonomy - Animal Sciences of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change during 2003–06. and award orations such as Prof. R. P. Choudhuri Endowment Lecture of the Guwahati University, Prof. M. M. Chakravarty Commemoration Oration of the Zoological Society, Kolkata and Professor Archana Sharma Memorial Lecture of the National Academy of Sciences, India.