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{{short description|American biologist (1929-1999)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=October 2018}}
{{Infobox scientist
| box_width = 300px
| name = Lekh Raj Batra
| image =
| image_width = 250px
| caption =
| birth_name = Lekh Raj Batra
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1929|11|26}}
| birth_place = [[Bhakkar]], [[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab]], [[British Raj|British India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1999|05|20 |1929|11|26|}}
| death_place = [[Washington D.C.]], USA
| residence = [[Beltsville]], [[Maryland]]
| nationality = Indian, American
| fields = [[Mycology]]
| workplaces = {{Plainlist|
* [[Deshbandhu College]]
* [[Swarthmore College]]
* [[University of Kansas]]
* [[Beltsville Agricultural Research Center]]
* }}
| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|
* [[Panjab University]] (BSc, MSc)
* [[Cornell University]] (PhD)
* }}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Richard P. Korf]]
| academic_advisors =
| thesis_title =
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year = 1958
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| known_for =
| influences =
| signature =
| website =
| spouse = [[Suzanne Batra]]
| awards =
}}
'''Lekh Raj Batra''' (26 November 1929 – 20 May 1999) was a distinguished [[mycologist]] and [[linguist]].<ref name=autogenerated1 />
He studied the symbiotic relationships of fungi and beetles focusing on [[ambrosia beetle]]s and fungi, bio-systematics of [[hemiascomycetes]] and [[discomycetes]] and [[fungal diseases]].<ref name=autogenerated2 />

== Early life and education ==

Batra was born in Nawan Jandanwala, a village near the [[Thar Desert]] in [[Western Punjab]], [[Presidencies and provinces of British India|British India]]. His immediate family included two sisters and two brothers. Batra was the first member of his family to receive schooling, and he attended high school in [[Lahore]], [[Pakistan]].<ref name=autogenerated2 /> However, in the ethnic violence following the [[partition of British India]] in 1947, he lost all of his relatives on his mother's side, and his penniless family moved to [[Punjab, India|Punjab]], India. There, he began his interest in mycology as he hunted the hills for [[edible mushroom]]s to feed his family.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> After arriving in India, he went on to earn his Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees with Honours in Botany from [[Panjab University, Chandigarh]] as a President of India scholar.<ref name=autogenerated3 /><ref name=autogenerated2 /> In 1956, he moved to the United States of America to study at [[Cornell University]] under the mycologist [[Richard P. Korf]], receiving his Doctorate in Botany in 1958.<ref name=autogenerated2 />

== Career ==

Batra served as a lecturer for one year at the [[Deshbandhu College]] in [[Delhi]] before moving to the US.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> He also served in the [[Indian army]].<ref name=autogenerated3 /> After completing his doctorate at Cornell University, he started teaching botany at [[Swarthmore College]] near Philadelphia where he met [[Suzanne Batra|Suzanne W. Tubby]], his future wife. He briefly worked for the Indian government in 1960s.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> He returned to the United States and joined the [[University of Kansas]] as a research associate while his wife was working on her doctorate in entomology there. Batra later became an assistant and associate professor, working on the [[symbiosis|symbiotic relationship]] of ambrosia fungi and beetles. In 1963, he became a US citizen. After his wife graduated in 1967, they moved to [[Beltsville, Maryland]] where he joined federal government's [[Beltsville Agricultural Research Center]] and became a senior scientist and research leader. In 1986, he served as science advisor to the director of Beltsville. He retired in 1994.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> After his retirement, he served as coordinator of the International Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, a [[UNESCO]] project aimed at providing information regarding food and agriculture for developing countries.<ref name=autogenerated2 />

== Personal life ==

Batra married Suzanne W. Tubby in a Hindu wedding ceremony on 12 June 1960 in Delhi, India, and they had two children, daughter Mira and son Persa.<ref name=autogenerated3 />

He was a man of diverse interests, famous for his excellent sense of humor.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> Once, he dressed up in a plaid shirt, jeans and a straw hat and entered the Greenbelt Labor Day parade, with 13 piglets and a sow that he had borrowed from the research station.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> He was also actively involved in the community activities and affairs in Beltsville, taking part in the opposition to sale of the research station's land to developers.<ref name=autogenerated2 /><ref name=autogenerated3 />

Batra was a noted linguist, fluent in six Indian languages, as well as a master in English, Hindi, Urdu, French and German. He additionally knew some Arabic and Russian, and was reported to have translated [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khruschev's]] famous 1956 speech, "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]]", from Russian to both English and Arabic for others as he listened to the speech on television.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> According to his former Beltsville colleague, Marie Tousignant, he also combined his interests in linguistics and mycology and "... once translated all of the Latin scientific terms into Japanese".<ref name=autogenerated1 />

Batra died following a cerebral hemorrhage in Washington D.C. on 20 May 1999.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> His funeral followed a traditional Indian reception where, in reference to his field of study, mourners were served with [[truffle]]s, [[Morchella|morels]], [[Pleurotus|oyster]] and [[shiitake]] mushrooms.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> He featured among the 10 people selected by the [[Washington Post]] for their annual ''in memoriam'' article, "Passings 1999".<ref name=autogenerated3 />

== Publications ==

During his career, Batra published more than 130 [[Academic publishing#Scholarly paper|articles]] and [[Review article|reviews]], and authored four [[Monograph#In biology|monographs]] including ''World Species of [[Monilinia]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Batra |first=L.R. |date=1991 |title=World species of Monilinia (fungi) |url=https://www.schweizerbart.de/publications/detail/isbn/9783443760069/Mycologia_Memoir_No_16 |publisher=Schweizerbart science publishers |pages=246 |isbn=978-3-443-76006-9 |author-link=Lekh Raj Batra }}</ref> He served as an editor and edited four books and two volumes of a journal. He traveled the world before retirement in search of unknown fungi, discovering 38 new fungal species<ref name=autogenerated4 /> and 7 fungal diseases. He collaborated with wife Suzanne in studying fungus-cultivating insects, with their overview appearing in ''[[Scientific American]]'' in 1967.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Batra |first1=S.W.T. |last2=Batra |first2=L.R. |date=1967 |title=The Fungus Gardens of Insects |journal=Scientific American |volume=217 |issue=5 |pages= 112–120|doi= 10.1038/scientificamerican1167-112|bibcode=1967SciAm.217e.112B }}</ref><ref name=autogenerated2 /> They also published on the mummy-berry disease of [[Blueberry|blueberries]] and [[Huckleberry|huckleberries]] caused by ''Monilinia'' species, with their work published in ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' in 1985.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Batra |first1=L.R. |last2=Batra |first2=S.W.T. |date=1985 |title=Floral Mimicry Induced By Mummy-Berry Fungus Exploits Hosts Pollinators As Vectors |journal=Science |volume=228 |issue=4702 |pages=1011–1013 |doi=10.1126/science.228.4702.1011 |pmid=17797664 |bibcode=1985Sci...228.1011B |s2cid=21422865 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1230960 }}</ref> Batra was writing an autobiography, with a focus on his [[Indus River|Indus Valley]] boyhood, but this was not complete when he died in 1999.<ref name=autogenerated3 />

{{botanist|L.R.Batra}}

==See also==
*[[List of mycologists]]

== Selected publications ==
* {{cite journal | last1 = Batra | first1 = L.R. | year = 1966 | title = Ambrosia fungi: extent of specificity in ambrosia beetles | journal = Science | volume = 153 | issue = 3732| pages = 193–195 | doi = 10.1126/science.153.3732.193 | pmid = 17831508 | bibcode = 1966Sci...153..193B | s2cid = 25612420 }}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Batra | first1 = S.W.T. | last2 = Batra | first2 = L.R. | year = 1967 | title = The fungus gardens of insects | journal = Sci Am | volume = 217 | issue = 5| pages = 112–20 | doi = 10.1038/scientificamerican1167-112 | bibcode = 1967SciAm.217e.112B }}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Batra | first1 = L.R. | year = 1967 | title = Ambrosia fungi: a taxonomic revision and nutritional studies of some species | journal = Mycologia | volume = 59 | issue = 6| pages = 976–1017 | doi = 10.1080/00275514.1967.12018485 }}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Batra | first1 = L.R. | last2 = Batra | first2 = S.W.T. | last3 = Bohart | first3 = G.E. | year = 1973 | title = The mycoflora of domesticated and wild bees (Apoidea) | journal = Mycol Appl | volume = 49 | pages = 13–44 | doi = 10.1007/bf02057445 | s2cid = 45679299 }}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Batra | first1 = L.R. | last2 = Millner | first2 = P.D. | year = 1976 | title = Asian fermented foods and beverages. In: Unterkifler LA, ed. Developments in industrial mycology. Washington, DC. | journal = Soc Indust Microbiol | volume = 17 | pages = 117–128 }}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Batra | first1 = L.R. | last2 = Batra | first2 = S.W.T. | year = 1985 | title = Floral mimicry induced by mummy-berry fungus exploits host's pollinators as vectors | url = https://zenodo.org/record/1230960| journal = Science | volume = 228 | issue = 1011–1013| pages = 1011–3 | pmid = 17797664 | doi = 10.1126/science.228.4702.1011 | bibcode = 1985Sci...228.1011B | s2cid = 21422865 }}
* Names of Japanese Plants in Romanized Katakana and Scientific Nomenclature.

== Monographs ==
#Nematosporaceae (Hemiascomycetidae): taxonomy, pathogenicity, distribution and vector relations. USDA Tech Bull 1469:1-77. 1973
#Insect-fungus symbiosis: nutrition, mutualism and commensalisms. Montclair, New Jersey: Allanheld, Osmun & Co. 276 p. 1979
#World species of Monilinia (Fungi): their ecology, biosystematics and control. Mycologia Mem 16. 246 p. 1991 (https://books.google.com/books?id=0GgQAQAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s)

== References ==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite news |last1=Pae |first1=Peter |title=Lekh Raj Batra |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1999/12/26/lekh-raj-batra/00410c3b-33ca-445d-8f53-504b385f5ba5/ |work=Washington Post |id={{ProQuest|408573262}} |date=26 December 1999 }}</ref>
<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite journal |last1=Lichtwardt |first1=R.W. |author-link1=Robert W. Lichtwardt |last2=Denison |first2=W.C. |date=Sep-Oct 2003 |title=Lekh Raj Batra, 1929-1999 |jstor=3762026 |journal=Mycologia |volume=95 |issue=5 |pages=982–983 |doi= 10.1080/15572536.2004.11833057|s2cid=86525863 }}</ref>
<ref name=autogenerated3>{{cite web |url=http://news2.nnyln.net/adirondack-enterprise/adirondack-enterprise-2000-january-march/adirondack-enterprise-2000-january-march%20-%200934.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2013-11-25 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202235618/http://news2.nnyln.net/adirondack-enterprise/adirondack-enterprise-2000-january-march/adirondack-enterprise-2000-january-march%20-%200934.pdf |archive-date=2013-12-02 }}</ref>
<ref name=autogenerated4>Mycobank http://www.mycobank.org/Biolomics.aspx?Table=Mycobank_Advanced&Page=200&ViewMode=Basic</ref>
}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Batra, Lekh Raj}}
[[Category:1929 births]]
[[Category:1999 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian botanists]]
[[Category:Indian mycologists]]
[[Category:Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:University of Delhi faculty]]
[[Category:Swarthmore College faculty]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:University of Kansas faculty]]
[[Category:American mycologists]]
[[Category:Panjab University alumni]]
[[Category:People from Beltsville, Maryland]]
[[Category:20th-century American botanists]]
[[Category:Scientists from Punjab, India]]

Lekh Raj Batra - Revision history

imported>Gamaliel at 19:16, 20 August 2021