Velu Govindan is a senior wheat breeder at the CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program in Mexico. He has been engaged in wheat improvement research for the past 15 years. During this period, he made significant contributions towards the development and release of more than 20 biofortified wheat varieties in South Asia with enhanced zinc and iron concentration, with tolerance to rusts & other foliar diseases and climate change-induced heat and drought stress.
Govindan is leading the two of the spring wheat breeding pipelines targeted to early maturing wheat environments with wheat yield potential, climate resilience and yield stability across diverse environments by combining traditional breeding and cutting-edge genomic tools. He is leading the CIMMYT breeding efforts towards mainstreaming grain Zn across elite wheat lines through accelerated breeding strategies. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 book chapters. He received young scientist award from India.
Innovations 
