Dr. Kanika Bansal is an experimental and computational biologist with over a decade of expertise in genomics, metagenomics, and microbial ecology. Her research spans agricultural soils, afforestation projects, and aquatic environments, leveraging high-throughput sequencing technologies to decode microbial and eukaryotic diversity.
Kanika earned her Ph.D. from CSIR-IMTECH, where she investigated the evolutionary dynamics of phytopathogens affecting staple and cash crops across multiple continents. She later focused on nosocomial infections and antimicrobial resistance during her postdoctoral research, contributing to sustainable solutions for hospital-associated microbial threats.
With hands-on experience in whole-genome sequencing, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and bioinformatics pipeline development, she played a pivotal role in setting up NGS sequencing infrastructure and troubleshooting library preparation protocols. She has contributed over 200 draft and 40 complete genomes to public repositories and has analyzed 135+ high-throughput sequencing datasets using Illumina and Nanopore platforms.
Currently, as a Postdoctoral Consultant at IIHS, she leads metabarcoding projects on soil and water ecosystems, studying microbial and fungal community shifts in afforestation, biodiversity monitoring through eDNA, and microbial responses to conventional vs. regenerative farming. Her work informs environmental policy, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable agriculture through genomics-driven insights.
With expertise in both experimental and computational biology, Kanika is committed to translating genomic data into actionable solutions for environmental sustainability.
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