I had a great fortune to learn my first lessons in ecology in the beautiful forests of Western Ghats with NCF. I studied coffee invasion in the Rainforest fragments in Anamalai hills of this landscape for my Master’s dissertation. Later, I studied spatio-temporal and socio-economic aspects of human-wildlife conflicts in the northern Western Ghats. I was also involved in the large mammal abundance monitoring exercise in this region that was carried out in collaboration with the Forest Department. 

I am currently working at National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. My study looks at the tree-grass dynamics in a fascinating ecosystem known as Shola-grasslands, located at the higher reaches of the Western Ghats.