By Katherine Mangan

Gopi K. Podila, 52, a professor and chairman of the biological-sciences department at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, was hired in 2001 from Michigan Technological University. The professor, who was shot and killed in a departmental faculty meeting on Friday, taught courses in molecular-biology systems, advanced molecular techniques, plant molecular biology, and biotechnology.

Mr. Podila "was a true servant who worked with incredible dedication and energy for the department and the graduate program in biotechnology at UA-Huntsville," John W. Shriver, a professor of biology and chemistry at the college wrote in an e-mail message. "He was one of the kindest and most altruistic people I have ever known. We will all miss him."

Bruce W. Stallsmith, an assistant professor of biological sciences and another colleague, concurred.

"Gopi Podila was very active with international efforts working to improve plants through improved biotechnologies," Mr. Stallsmith wrote in another e-mail message. "He worked steadily to improve the department's teaching and research capabilities in a climate of increasing financial stress. He was well aware of the increasing problems of large class size and inadequate support for graduate students."

Colleagues and students described him as warm and funny.

One of his students, Ross Kirk, a junior, posted a comment on a local newspaper Web site: "I only knew Dr. Podila for a few weeks, but he was so inspiring and just a wonderful person all around ... . His classes were so interesting, and he was a brilliant man."

Contacted by e-mail, Mr. Kirk said he would always remember a lighthearted moment on the first day of a course this semester that examined the intersections of biology, chemistry, and engineering. Mr. Podila told students that life is unpredictable. "Then he did a kind of crazy, jumping dance move and said, 'See! How could you have expected me to do that?'" He then went on to explain "how we adapt to whatever happens as it comes, learn from it, and are better prepared for the future."

Mr. Podila listed his research interests as "engineering tree biomass for bioenergy, functional genomics of plant-microbe interactions, and plant molecular biology and biotechnology."

He received a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Nagarjuna University, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, and, in 1983, a master's degree in plant pathology from Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. In 1987 he received a doctorate in molecular biology from Indiana State University.

He was an editorial-board member of the journals Symbiosis, New Phytologist, Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants, and the Journal of Plant Interactions.

According to The Times of India, Mr. Podila was the youngest of four children and is survived by a wife and two teenage daughters. The newspaper reported that he had studied under his father, who was head of the biological-sciences department at Nagarjuna University.