Savithramma Dinesh-Kumar received his BSc and MSc in genetics from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangaluru, India. Following a brief period as an instructor, he moved to the United States and received his PhD in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from Iowa State University. He received a Life Science Research Fellowship, which funded his post-doctoral work at the USDA–ARS Plant Gene Expression Center (PGEC) and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1999, he accepted a faculty position in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University; he advanced to associate professor in 2004. In 2010, he moved to the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis, where he is now a professor and the department chair and a professor in The Genome Center.
His research accomplishments are recognized by a number of awards, including Fellow of the AAAS in 2018; the University of California, Davis Faculty Research Award in 2016; a Junior Faculty Fellowship in 2003; and a Hellman Family Fellowship in 2000. He served as a senior editor of MPMI from 2004 to 2006, as an advisory board member of Plant Journal from 2004 to 2006, and as an editorial board member of Autophagy from 2006 to 2010. He is currently an associate editor of PLoS Pathogens, a senior editor of Phytopathology Research, an editorial board member of Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, and an academic editor of Peer J. He is a member of the American Society of Plant Biology Minority Affairs Committee. Dinesh-Kumar has trained numerous undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and international and national visitors in his laboratory.