William D Dar, PhD, is the Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, India, since January 2000.

Dr Dar has had a long and distinguished career as an educationist, agricultural scientist, administrator, and humanitarian in his native Philippines and abroad in the Asia Pacific region and sub-Saharan Africa.

He holds the distinction of being the first Filipino and Asian to be Director General of ICRISAT, a center supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He is also currently Chair of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Dr Dar has also been a member of the UN Millennium Task Force on Hunger. Prior to joining ICRISAT, he served as Presidential Adviser for Rural Development, and Secretary of Agriculture in the Philippines (equivalent to Minister of Agriculture), the first ever alumnus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) to become one. Before this, he was Executive Director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), Director of the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) of the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) and Vice President for R&D and Professor of Benguet State University (BSU), Philippines.

Dr Dar has received a number of awards and honors, including the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) of the Philippines, Outstanding Young Scientist of the Year, Crop Science Society of the Philippines' Achievement Award for Research Management and Outstanding Science Administrator given by the Philippines Department of Science and Technology.

He was also awarded as Distinguished Alumnus of UPLB and Most Outstanding Alumnus of BSU and the Ilocos Sur Polytechnic State College. In November 2002, PCARRD honored him with its highest and most prestigious award, the Symbol of Excellence in R&D Management. In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Mariano Marcos State University in the Philippines and in 2007, t he Benguet State University conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Resource Management. In 2003, he was awarded the "For the Sake of Agriculture and Rural Development in Vietnam Award". Recently, he was recipient of the 2007 Outstanding Professional of the Year Award in the field of agriculture awarded by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) of the Philippine Government. In April 2008, Dr Dar was conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Technology by the Isabela State University (ISU) in the Philippines.