My research focuses on coexistence futures on an urban and warming planet, with a particular emphasis on complex interplays between urban ecology, cognitive and cultural dynamics in animals, and socio-cultural practices that affect commensal and wildlife populations. I lead Thinkpaws group (www.Thinkpaws.org) dedicated to building "the Science of Tropical Cities" and enhancing knowledge base within novel ecosystems in rapidly urbanizing regions. Our work is guided by the One Health principle, where we investigate the relationship between animal populations, behavioural/disease contagions, and human/animal health while considering the cultural traditions of feeding and protecting non-human animals in developing countries.
Additional information:
I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Delhi (Sri Venkateswara College) in 2011 before receiving an institutional scholarship from the Government of India to pursue a postgraduate degree in Wildlife Science at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). After completing my M.Sc. dissertation, which laid the foundation for the Black Kite Project, I joined Oxford University as a Felix Scholar to pursue my DPhil (2014-19), where I studied the urban ecology and ethno-ornithology of the resident and migratory populations of Black Kites. I was supervised/mentored by Prof(s). Andy Gosler, Fabrizio Sergio (CSIC, Spain), Y V Jhala and Qamar Qureshi (WII)
From 2019-22, I continued to build upon the Black Kite Project (https://delhikites.wixsite.com/121212), which is now a long-term study in its 15th year of continuous monitoring. In August 2020, with the support of the India Oxford Initiative (IndOx), I have also expanded my research to include other urban animals, leading to the formation of the Thinkpaws group. In January 2023, I was awarded an early career fellowship grant by the DBT/Wellcome Trust UK India Alliance, which is based at the National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR, Bengaluru (PAWS = People, Animals and Waste Systems). Thinkpaws is an international, cross-disciplinary team addressing the developmental challenge of human-animal "coexistence futures" in tropical cities that are expanding and becoming crowded.
Animals provide ecosystem services as scavengers and remain culturally important across South Asia, yet waste-mediated contact also creates risks of injury, conflict, and zoonoses. South Asia, Africa and Latin America face high zoonotic risks, warranting scholarship that brings together ecology, epidemiology, sociology, etc., and urban data. I aim to inform/execute policies on coexistence conundrums, like India’s deeply polarising street-dog issue. It hints at a larger systemic problem in how cities "house/relegate" PAWS within shared environments.
