Indian botanist, mycologist and plant pathologist Kartar Singh Thind worked for most of his career at Panjab University, Chandigarh. He was born in Saidpur in the Punjab and studied for his BSc (1939) and MSc (1940) at the same university. After achieving first class honours in both degrees, Thind went on to gain his doctorate in plant pathology at Wisconsin University in the U.S.A.

Returning to India, Thind initially held the post of Regional Potato Development Officer in Himachal Pradesh before settling at Panjab University as Senior Lecturer in Botany (Mycology and Plant Pathology, 1949-1957). He was subsequently Reader (1957-1962), Professor (1962-1967), Senior Professor (1967-1977) and Head of the Botany Department (1976-1977). Thind served for three more years as Professor before his retirement in 1980, after which he continued his research at the university.

Though plant pathology had been his earlier specialisation, Thind was best known for his contributions to systematic mycology. Among his noted publications were Physiology of Fungi and papers on the Myxomycetes, Discomycetes and Clavariaceae of India. He carried out pioneering and extensive exploration of the mycoflora of the north-west Himalayas, switching his focus to the eastern Himalayas in his later career.

Thind was elected a Fellow of all three of India’s scientific academies; the National Academy of Sciences, India (in 1958), the Indian Academy of Sciences (in 1960) and the Indian National Science Academy (in 1968). He received the Panchanan Maheshwari Medal of the Indian Botanical Society and served as president of the Indian Phytopathological Society, the Indian Botanical Society and of the Mycological Society of India.

Sources:
C.V. Subramanian, 1992, Current Science, 63(3): 151-152.