Ashwani Kumar Rai is a graduate student at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. His research focuses on exploring components that help green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to survive in low carbon dioxide conditions. He and his team are also introducing algal carbon-concentrating mechanisms into higher plants to see if they can improve photosynthesis. Rai earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in biotechnology at Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, India. His work has been published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) and the Journal of Earth Science System.