Dr Poonam Singh Nigam was awarded Doctor of Science (DSc) in 2020 from Ulster University after the assessment of her DSc thesis {on her Post-doctoral Research, Doctoral & postdoctoral-supervision, funded-projects, global-collaborations, affiliations & Fellowship of several scientific societies and research-outputs in public domain}. She holds a PhD in Industrial Microbiology (1985) funded with the award of Research Fellowship from Council of Scientific & Industrial Research of India.

She was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Germany (1985-1988), before joining as senior research officer in Biotechnology at Ulster University in 1990. She became a full time Lecturer in Biotechnology in 1996 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2001.

Poonam became Chartered Biologist in 1992 and received her Postgraduate Certificate in university teaching in 1998 from Ulster University. She is a Senior Fellow in the The Higher Education Academy UK,  a Fellow of Centre of Higher Education Research & Practice, Fellow of Royal Society of Biology, Fellow of International Forum on Industrial Bioprocesses, Fellow of Academy of Microbiological Sciences, and Fellow of  Biotechnology Research Society.

Research interests: Microbial-Biotechnology: industrial & applied microbiology, fermentation technology, in the area of Environmental, Food and pharmaceutical.

Research Outputs: one EU Patent, four biotechnology reference books, more than 300 peer reviewed papers, Biotechnology-books chapters and research-informed review articles.

Teaching experience: Industrial and applied microbiology and biotechnology.

Administrative roles: Course Director Biotechnology Postgraduate program (2000-presnt); Course Director Food Biotechnology, a joint Postgraduate degree program, with 2 Greek Universities (2000-2013), module coordinator various modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level (1996-present).