From 1946 to 1948 he worked at Kolkata's Botanical Garden and Herbarium in a stipendiary training programme in systematic botany and taxonomy.
[1] From 1952 until the end of his career he was (except for sabbaticals) a faculty member in the University of Lucknow's botany department.
[2] With support from the Fulbright Program he studied from 1960 to 1963 in the US for advanced training in lichenology under William Alfred Weber at the University of Colorado Boulder.
[1]When he first began his research, very little was known about the lichen flora of India and most type specimens were held in European herbaria.
Awasthi has made particular progress in making information available for students in his home country and building up a comprehensive herbarium.