She received her Bachelor and Master degrees from University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India in 1994 and 1996, respectively, and Ph.D. from University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 2002. Before joining Lamar University in the fall of 2010, Dr. Kucknoor worked as a postdoctoral research associate at UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and Research Assistant Professor at Washington State University. Dr. Kucknoor has been awarded several Academic Awards such as NSF Biology Scholar, 2014-2015 Assessment Residency Cohorts and American Society for Microbiology ASMCUE Travel Award. Dr. Kucknoor has published over 24 peer-reviewed journal articles. She also had an enormous amount of presentations at national and regional conferences.