Prof. Mohammad. Shamim Jairajpuri was born in 1942 in the village Jairajpur, District Azamgarh, U.P. He obtained his B.Sc. (1959), M.Sc. (1961) and Ph. D(1964) from Aligarh Muslim University. The degree of Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) was awarded to him in Zoology by Aligarh Muslim University in 1970 on his outstanding work on Neuratology in particular on Taxonomy, at a young age of 28 years only. He was first appointed a Lecturer (1964) then a Reader (1972), Professor (1983), Chairman (1988-89 & 1997-98) of the Zoology Department and Dean (1993-95 & 1997-98) of the Faculty of Life Sciences, AMU.
Prof. Jairajpuri has done pioneering research on plant and soil nematodes for which the Zoological Survey of India awarded him with gold medal in 1997 and 1998. He is considered a renowned world authority in this subject. He has published over 20 Books and Monograms, over 350 research papers and contributed numerous book chapters and general articles in reputed Journals of the world. He has the distinction of publishing over 80 research papers in Nematologica (The Netherlands) and over 40 papers in Revue de Nematologie (France), the two top most international journals in the subject of Nematology.
He has traveled widely within India and abroad (USA, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, South Korea, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh) in pursuit of his scientific work and has inaugurated and chaired many national and international conferences, seminars, symposia, workshops etc. Prof. Jairajpuri is Fellow (FNA, FASc, FNASc, FAAS, FISP, FZSI, FZS, FIBOL etc.) of several learned societies of the world. He was the President of the Nematological Society of India (1979 -81), and Chief Editor of the Indian Journal of Nematology (1977-79), Vice President of the Zoological Society (1989-91), and Secretary of the Helminthological Society of India (1978-81). He is on the Editorial Board of a number of national and international journals. He has guided 28 students in their Ph. D and equal number in M.Phil degrees. He was the Principal Nematologist to the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International, United Kingdom from 1981-83. He has held the highly prestigious and coveted position of the Director of Zoological Survey of India from 1989-91 under the Ministry of Environmental and Forests and in that capacity he was advisor to the Government of India on all matters pertaining to Zoology.
In 1991, he was appointed Coordinator of the Agriculture Center at AMU and became the Founder Director of the Institute of Agriculture in 1993 and worked in that capacity until July 1996 and through ceaseless efforts he developed it into an organisation of national status. He was the Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences and also simultaneously Chairman of the Department of Zoology, Museology and Wildlife Sciences. Prof. Jairajpuri is member of several high-powered committees of the Government of India. Since 9th January 1998 he is working as the Founder Vice Chancellor of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University and simultaneously as the Honorary Professor in School of Life Sciences of the University of Hyderabad.
In December 1999 the Ministry of Environment & Forests chose him to be the first recipient of the Janaki Ammanl National Award in Taxonomy for his work in the field of Nematology. The award carries a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 and citation. In March 2000, the Third World Academy of Sciences, Trieste, Italy has elected him as a fellow. And was elected a Fellow of the Islamic Academy of Sciences in 2002.