Dr. V. S. Anilkumar is a Principal, Professor, and Botanist at Government College Kasaragod, Kerala, India. He has a Master of Science in Botany with a Gold Medal, a Bachelor of Education in Natural Science, a Master of Philosophy in Botany, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Botany. He has been awarded various honors and achievements, including First Rank with Gold Medal for Post Graduate Degree (Botany) from Kerala University and Secured First Rank for Graduate Course from Kerala University. He is a subject expert of various government academic programs and the State Council of Educational Research and Training, Kerala State, India. He has been a resource person in national seminars and invited lectures.

Dr. Anilkumar has supervised 32 MSc dissertations and 1 M.Phil. dissertation. He has carried out systematic studies of Solanum species with micromorphological and molecular data and reported the first species from the country. He is currently carrying out extensive explorations in southern Western Ghats of Kerala state and guiding 3 Ph.D. scholars. His research interests include Amaranthaceae, Acanthaceae, Solanaceae, and Poaceae.

Dr. Anilkumar has technical expertise in plant identification and herbarium preparation, molecular systematic tools (ISSR, ITS, and cp genes), scanning electron microscopy and data interpretation, and FTIR spectral data interpretation and correlation with chemotaxonomy.