Sudhir Kumar Sopory (born on 7 January 1948) is an Indian educationist, plant physiologist, scientist and former vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
[10] In between, he worked at various overseas educational institutions; Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, (1976–1978), University of Texas at their Department of Botany as a visiting Fulbright fellow (1981–1982), USDA Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory, Maryland and University of Munich as a visiting Humboldt Professor (1991–1992).
[8] After his superannuation, he joined International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) New Delhi, as a group leader of research in plant molecular biology in 1997, and became the interim director of the institution in 2010.
[14] His researches at University of Texas assisted in the discovery of the "role of calcium and calmodulin" in higher plants and, while in Maryland, he worked on D1 protein to find the mechanism behind it.
In the early Nineties, he worked under R. Hermann on promoter analysis of light regulated genes encoding proteins involved in photosynthesis.
Working on rice (Oryza sativa) and Pennisetum, he evolved new methodologies for producing stress tolerant transgenic plants.
[8] During his stint as the vice chancellor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the institution is reported to have acquired a new 1000-acre campus in South Delhi.