Growing a Forest of People

Student conference has been fostering India’s conservation community for 14 years   “How many of you have been chased by an elephant?” is not a typical question you’d expect to hear at a conference. But it seems to fit right in at this one; many people raise their hands, some laugh. Standing at the front […]

For the Love of Bangalore

Harini Nagendra is a Professor of Ecological Sciences at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. She also leads the university’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability. Over the past 25 years, Harini has been studying the impact of urbanisation on both the ecology of a city and its people. For her interdisciplinary research, she has received many […]

My Journey From Field Assistant to Information Scientist

From assisting Prof Madhav Gadgil in his field work, to retiring as the librarian of the Division of Biological Sciences, Yashwant Kanade looks back at almost four decades with IISc   I was born on 16 January, 1962 in Sirsi, Uttara Kannada. After finishing primary school, even though there was a private school near my […]

Partners In The Field

Field assistants are critical yet underappreciated members of the ecological research community   When Raman Sukumar went to the forests of Mudumalai to study elephants for his PhD in 1978, he wanted a local person familiar with the terrain, and experienced at navigating elephant country to guide him. The forest rangers put him in touch […]

Half a Century of Worship at “Tata’s Temple of Science”

The evolutionary biologist recounts his love for the campus of IISc which has also served as a laboratory for his research The year was 1963, and it was my first week in Bangalore. As a 10-year-old boy, I was travelling with my parents and my two siblings, in the Bangalore Transport Service (BTS) bus no. […]

The Story Behind IISc’s Online Plant Database

A scientist and his small team of volunteers have steered the cause of plants by creating a unique database, an important first step in the battle for species conservation and habitat restoration On the third floor of IISc’s Biological Sciences building is a room which, at first glance, may seem like a computer science lab. […]

IISc’s remarkable expansion under Dhawan

Satish Dhawan was the longest-serving Director, who transformed the Institute in many ways – from reorganising academic departments to establishing new centres and encouraging the Institute community to embrace an interdisciplinary research approach. In 1951, Satish Dhawan joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as a Senior Scientific Officer, and within a few years, he […]

So you think you can explain your research in three minutes?

Students working on ecology, evolution, and conservation from IISc and other institutions in Bangalore came together for a competition to promote student interaction   PhD students are accustomed to giving long presentations. But there are occasions when one is expected to sum up years of work in a short span, sometimes in just a few […]