Harini Nagendra, PhD, Director, Research Centre and Professor, School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru has been elected as a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy
for her seminal works related to the role of socioecological factors in shaping environmental change by using geospatial technologies to assess this change. Prof. Harini’s papers form a powerful exploration of issues of human society and climate change, land-use changes, and the loss of biodiversity, as well as the factors needed to mitigate them. An effective scientist and science communicator, Dr. Harini is internationally recognized for her published works in the world’s leading journals. Because of her impactful writings, Dr. Nagendra is one of the best- known sustainability and urban ecology experts in India.
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Urban Ecology and Sustainability
- Land Change Science
- Remote Sensing for Ecology and Conservation
- Forest Conservation
- Collective Action and Commons Research
- Sustainability Education for the Global South
- Ecology and Development
Harini Nagendra is Director of Research Center at the University, and leads the University’s Center for Climate Change and Sustainability.
Over the past 25 years, Harini has been at the leading edge of research examining conservation in forests and cities of South Asia from the perspective of both landscape ecology and social justice. For her interdisciplinary research and practice, she has received many awards including the 2009Cozzarelli Prize from the US National Academy of Sciences, the 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award, and the 2017 Clarivate Web of Science award.
Her publications include the books “Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future” (Oxford University Press, 2016) and “Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities” (Penguin, 2019, with Seema Mundoli) as well as over 150 research publications including recent papers in Nature, Nature Sustainability, and Science. She writes a monthly column ‘The Green Goblin’ in the Deccan Herald newspaper, and is a well-known public speaker and writer on issues of urban sustainability in India. She is also an associate editor of the journal Global Environmental Change.
Harini has been a Lead Author on the IPCCAR5 reports, and a past Science Committee member of DIVERSITAS and the Global Land Programme. She engages with international science and policy through her involvement as a Steering Committee member of the Future Earth Programme for Ecosystem Change and Society, and the Future Earth Urban Knowledge Advisory Network.
She is on the Advisory Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Climate-KIC, the WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities, and the Earth Leadership Program (formerly the Leopold Leadership Program).