Sivakumar Sukumaran

Research Assistant Professor- Quantitative/Population Genetics
Plant and Environmental Sciences Department

Office: Biosystems Research Complex 100C
Phone: 864-656-9959

Email: ssukuma@clemson.edu
Vita: Download CV
Personal Website: https://sites.google.com/view/sivakumar-sukumaran

Educational Background

Ph.D. Agronomy (Plant Breeding and Genetics)
Kansas State University 2012

M.S. Plant Breeding and Genetics
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University 2006

B.S. Agriculture
Kerala Agricultural University 2002

Courses Taught

• Guest lecture: Plant Breeding (PES-4050/6050)
• Guest lecture: Newman Seminar in Agricultural Sciences (AGSC 6100 Fall)

Profile

Dr. Sivakumar Sukumaran is a faculty member specializing in Quantitative and Population Genetics in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences and the Advanced Plant Technology Program at Clemson University, South Carolina, USA (2024–present). Prior to joining Clemson, he served as a Research Fellow (2022–2024) at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), The University of Queensland, Australia, where he focused on sorghum genetics and genomics for plant network biology.

From 2018 to 2021, Dr. Sukumaran was a Scientist and Lead in the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico. He led spring wheat physiological pre-breeding and genetics programs targeting yield potential, drought tolerance, and heat stress resilience, and developed over 300 pre-bred spring wheat lines that were distributed to more than >50 countries. He also led the wheat component of the Seeds of Discovery program to utilize genetic resources from wheat gene bank from 2018-2021.

He previously worked as an Associate Scientist (2015–2018) and Postdoctoral Fellow (2013–2014) at CIMMYT, focusing on wheat pre-breeding, genetic analysis, and adaptation studies. Dr. Sukumaran has a strong record of applied research and breeding across sorghum, spring wheat, durum wheat, synthetic wheat, and vegetable crops. He has published more than 35 peer-reviewed manuscripts and seven book chapters, and has been an invited speaker on utilizing genetic resources for wheat pre-breeding in India, Morocco, and the USA in conferences and workshops.

He also served as Co-Principal Investigator on several grants at CIMMYT funded by FFAR and USDA-NIFA and as PI for the Wheat component of Seeds of Discovery project. He is a member of the Crop Science Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy, the Indian Society of Plant Breeding and Genetics (Life member), and the Association of Agricultural Scientists of Indian Origin (Life member).


Honors and Awards
• 2021 Editor’s Citation for Excellence, Outstanding Service as Associate Editor, Crop Science
• 2018 Early Career Agricultural Scientist Award from the Association of Agricultural Scientists of Indian Origin in the United States of America, Baltimore, USA

Graduate student mentoring
• William Bradley Boone (Ph.D. Advisory committee: From May 2025)
• Diksha Jasrotia (Ph.D. Advisory committee: From July 2024)
• Vaishnavi P. Gupte (Ph.D. Advisory committee: From January 2025)

Research Interests

Use-inspired basic research leveraging genetic diversity and integrative genetic, genomic, physiological, and metabolomic approaches for multi-species crop improvement.

Publications

Follow google scholar for the full list.

Links