Professor Brajesh Singh is an internationally recognised expert in the field of soil and plant microbiology and functional ecology. Through his fundamental research, his work identifies the quantitative relationships between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions and how natural/anthropogenic pressures such as global change affect this. His applied research harnesses the knowledge gained in fundamental research to achieve increased farm productivity, sustainable development, environmental protection and food security.

His research has advanced critical areas of microbiome and ecosystem science, particularly linking soil biodiversity (microbial and faunal) to key ecosystem functions and services and has developed tools to improve farm productivity and environmental sustainability. This includes climate adaptation tools for the agriculture industry, management solutions to increase soil organic matter, increased export market access for agriculture produces, and training for farmers, consultants and policy advisors in sustainable agriculture and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Prof Singh has developed patented technologies for early and rapid detection of food and environmental pathogens which are used by multiple industries and government agencies globally.

His research has informed and supported multiple policy decisions from regional and national to global levels including provision of key recommendations for bilateral engagements in agribusiness and trade between Australia and India, and Australia and the European Union. He works with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisatioon and Convention of Biological diversity to increase resilience of farming systems and ensure food security in environmentally sustainable ways, and advises the European Commission on enhancing productivity in Bioeconomy (e.g., International Bioeconomy Forum).

Soil and Functional Ecology

Prof Singh’s current research focuses on the relationship between soil biodiversity and their biotic interactions with plant diversity on ecosystem functions (e.g., primary productivity, climate regulation, and pollution abatement), and to use this knowledge for industrial and societal benefits. His research has brought about fundamental shifts in functional soil ecology research. For example, his work demonstrated that functional redundancy in soil communities is overstated, and loss of soil biodiversity leads to direct and proportional loss of ecosystem functions and that microbial communities at regional and global scales are driven by the climate and resource availability just like for plant and animal ecology.

He has extensively applied ecological theories to explain patterns of soil biodiversity diversity and the shape and direction of relationships for biodiversity and ecosystem functions from microscopic, local, regional to global scales.

Agriculture Productivity and Agribusiness

Prof Singh’s research focuses on harnessing soil health, and soil and plant microbiomes to increase farm productivity, food safety and industrial innovations. His work has provided conceptual and experimental evidence that crop microbiomes play an important role in soil and crop health and productivity providing an opportunity to sustainably increase agriculture productivity.

Prof Singh’s work pushes discipline boundaries by modifying, testing, and applying approaches to identify keystone functional microbial species in crops/soils from microbiome data. Keystone species provide a target to manipulate the microbiome in situ for desired functional outcomes (e.g., increased disease resistance and nutrient availability). His worked informed the agriculture industries on the impact of climate change (including extreme weather events) on farm productivity and recommended approaches to minimise those impacts. His innovations are increasing the efficacy of existing microbial products and providing new microbiome tools for multiple Australian and global industries to increase the profitability of agribusiness sectors.

Soil health can influence farm productivity and long-term sustainability. Microbial communities and their activities are integral part of soil functioning. He has been developing and applying approaches to utilise microbial community and diversity as an effective tool in assessment of soil health/ quality at regional to global scales. 

Environmental Biotechnology

Prof Singh research interests in this field include innovation and utilisation of environmental biotechnological tools for agricultural productivity, bioremediation of organic pollutants and restoration of degraded lands. His work has idnetified crop core microbiomes, signal molecules plants produce  under stress to attract beneficial microbiota,  beneficial microbiota and  microbial metabolites which respond to plant signals and mitigate disease and drought stresses. Multiple microbial and microbiome tools have been tested and reported from his group and current investigations focus on developing new and increasing efficacies of microbiomes tools.

Climate Change and Microbial Diversity

Prof Singh has proposed new frameworks to explicitly include microbial contribution, feedback responses and their ability to mitigate greenhouse gases to improve prediction and mitigation of climate change. His later experimental work on the response of microbial respiration to global warming at the global scale has provided further evidence for the central role of microbes in climate change regulation and mitigation, and has challenged current estimates of soil carbon loss under future climates.

Because soil stores about four times as much carbon as plant biomass, warming induced increases in microbial respiration from soil represents an important positive feedback loop.

His research also identifies the microbial contribution and mechanisms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. To achieve this, his group examines the effect of global changes on functional microbial groups (methane oxidisers, nitrogen fixers, nitrifiers and denitrifiers) and related processes (GHG emission). The data is then up-scaled to predict the net emission and mitigation options of GHG due to global change at regional to national levels.

Recent awards and honours

• An elected (Foreign) Fellow of Indian National Science Academy, 2025
• NSW Premier Prize for Science and Engineering- Excellence in Biological Science, 2025.
• Arrell Global Food Innovation Award, Canada, 2024
• An elected fellow of Australian Academy of Science, 2023
• Applied Microbiology International- Dorothy Jones Prize winner, 2023
• An elected fellow of American Soil Science Society, 2022
• An elected fellow of Soil Science Australia, 2022
• An elected fellow of American Academy of Microbiology
• JA Prescott Medal of Soil Science, Soil Science Society of Australia, 2021
• Clarivate Highly cited researcher, 2021- Contd.
• Nominated, and elected for Humboldt Research Award, Germany, 2019.
• Vice-Chancellor’s Researcher of the Year award, 2020.
• Vice-Chancellor’s Highly Commended Excellence in Research award, 2019
• Invited to the Honourable Governor General for ‘National Feast’ at his residence in recognition of my contribution to the Agribusiness sector, 2015.

1. An integrated disease management program for the Australian Potato Industry
Partner/funding body: Hort Innovation
Period: 2024-2029.

2. Can eco-evolutionary theories explain outcomes of microbiome coalescence?
Partner/funding body: Australian Research Council – Discovery
Period: 2023-2026.

3. The ARC Training Centre for Smart and Sustainable Horticulture

Partner/funding body: Australian Research Council 
Period: 2025-2029.

• Policy: Coordinating, lead author and editor of Status of World’s Soil Report to be publicly released by UN-FAO in June 2026 (tentative).
• Policy: Coordinating and lead author of ‘State of knowledge of soil biodiversity: status, challenges and potentialities’ (https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cb1928en) for UN- FAO’s Global Soil Partnership, and UN-Convention of Biodiversity. Report launched in December 2020 at UN. Impact: led to ministerial agreement at COP-15 (Montreal, Dec 2022) to include soil biodiversity in national biodiversity assessments from 2026 form all UN member countries.
• Policy: Authored as a member of High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) of European Commission, to assess the needs, impacts and possible approach for an International Platform for Food Systems Science (IPFSS) 2021-2022) (https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-law-and-publications/publication-detail/-/publication/3f485a30-ede6-11ec-a534-01aa75ed71a1) . 
• Policy: Recommendation to explicitly include soil microbiome in One Health Approach (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-023-01386-y).  
• Keynote instructor to United Nation Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Microbiome: missing link learning pathway: Human Health, Soil Health and Food Safety to Inform Policy Development. 01- 24 July, 2020. 
• Policy: An editor and lead author of Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas (https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/global-soil-biodiversity-atlas). European Commission, Editorial team, which trigged many soil policies and debate at UN-FAO and EU.
• Policy: Authored white Paper on bioeconomy for the International Bioeconomy Forum (https://tinyurl.com/s6bbcrz4). 
• Policy: The author of Australia-India Cooperation in Agribusiness and Trade.(https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1472390/Agribusiness-Round-Table_Report.pdf). 
• Industry: Provided microbial products, knowledge and tools for multiple industries and satellite-based tools for monitoring plant health.
• Industry: Patented diagnostic technologies (e.g. US 8133676B2)) for food pathogens utilised by multinational companies, government agencies.
• Industry: Recommendations for crop adaptation to climate extreme  and approaches to enhance soil organic matters to Australia Research and Development coporations. 
• Training beyond academia: A training program in partnership with UN-FAO and others for African and South American continents on sustainable agriculture and environment.(https://www.globalsustainableagriculture.org/training-programs/)
• Training beyond academia: A training for soil, microbiome and ecosystem sciences in primary and secondary schools.
• Training beyond academia: annual masterclasses on soil biology and soil health for industry since 2012, trained ~550 stakeholders (>97% satisfaction rate).