“Soils are the basis of life, ninety-five percent of our food comes from the soil.” –Maria-Helena Semedo

Waqas is a soil scientist whose research work emphasizes soil-plant interaction under abiotic stresses. He graduated with a PhD in Soil Science back in 2015. His research provided innovative strategies to address soil salinity in maize using silicon nutrition. Since 2016, Waqas has broadened his research domain by winning back-to-back national projects (0.21 million USD) on the hot topics of biochar, silicon, soil salinity and their impacts on wheat and rice crops. In these projects, Dr. Waqas used biochar as a nutrient carrier for the plant roots under soil salinity and heavy metal stresses. He later confirmed biochar's impact on wheat root growth using the microelectrode ion flux measurement technique at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, back in 2019. Meanwhile, Waqas worked effectively with his postgraduate research students to examine the nutrients and metabolites by using biochar/engineered biochar in different vegetables under abiotic stresses. Waqas's lab has produced high-quality publications in recent years.

In December 2024, he delivered a Keynote Speaker presentation entitled 'Minerals doped biochar: A potential source for ecological restoration' at an International Academic Symposium jointly organized by the Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences and the University of Western Australia.

2025  Post Doc in Plant Physiology, School Of Biological Sciences, The University Of Western Australia Perth, Australia
2015  PhD in Soil Science, University Of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan

Journal Papers