Sunzid Ahmed, a native of Bangladesh, joined GIFS and The Department of Plant Science at The University of Saskatchewan in fall-2021 as a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Leon Kochian. His research is focused on understanding the chemotaxis and interactions between plants and soil microorganisms to increase yields and build sustainable cultivation systems. In addition to the current research project in GIFS, Sunzid’s research expertise also lies in different aspects of food and environmental microbiology with specialisations in non-chlorinated sanitizer development and detection of multi-drug resistant microorganisms from fresh food and wastewater.

Sunzid received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in microbiology from Jashore University of Science & Technology, Bangladesh. In 2019, he was awarded with an Australia Awards scholarship to study in The University of Western Australia, from where he completed a Master of Biotechnology degree by the mid of 2021. In his postgraduate study he conducted research on impact of seed maturity on the morphological characteristics, germinability, nutritional composition and microbiome of subterranean clover seeds.

Outside the academic and research activities, Sunzid enjoys travelling, landscape photography, music and cooking traditional foods.