Members - Chatur Ullu Lab

Debangini Ray | Ph.D. Student

Debangini Ray is an interdisciplinary ecologist who believes strongly in citizen science action and storytelling as a medium for science communication. She has previously worked with TSA-India, Aaranyak, WCS-India and ATREE, and is presently working with Marine Flagships program at Dakshin Foundation. Her brainchild is The False Trail, a platform where citizens share their observations on urban wildlife. Her PhD focuses on threats to owls and understanding peoples’ perception about owls. Her other interests lie in books and movies, photography, nature journaling, caffeine, cats, and owls!

Arajush Payra | Ph.D. Student

Arajush is crazy about insects. He is involved in the Western Ghats Odonata Project. He is a great field worker and can get lost in the forests! He has 60+ publications to his credit. Recently he led description of Protosticta armageddonia from Kerala State. When not on the field, he prefers eating biryani followed by dozing off.

Nikhil Kuni | Ph.D. Student

Nikhil is a MSc in Zoology from Solapur University. Since beginning he is fascinated by grasslands, spiders, and moths. Over the years, he worked with WII and ZSI and has described several new species of spiders and moths. As a PhD student at MIT-WPU & CUL, he is looking into the impact of urbanization on spider assemblages and asking questions about urban stressors and spiders.

Shubhankar K. | PhD Student

Shubhankar Khangar has completed MSc in Environmental Science with a specialization in Wildlife Conservation from MIT-WPU Pune. He has excellent skills of project and team management. He has worked with Nagpur Ploggers, WildTales, and Bridgestone CSR before joining our team. An avid cat lovers, Shubhankar is responsible to manage the day-to-day activities of CUL. He is good barista and makes sure we have a great party always!!!

Pratiksha Chalke | Research Student

Pratiksha is a skilled geoinformatics lady with immense interest in biodiversity and conservation. She works on LULC and change detection to analyze landscape-wide dynamics and carbon sequestration. In her latest work, she demonstrates why urban planning is important for sustainability. Always eager to learn new things and active on CUL WhatsApp group, Pratiksha is one of the most resourceful person we have in here!

Col. (Retd.) Krishnandu Sarkar

Ameya D. | Biodiversity Fellow

Inshiya Vohra | JRF

Inshiya has completed MSc in Environmental Science with a specialization in Wildlife Conservation from MIT-WPU Pune. For her masters dissertaion Inshiya worked on the caged Leopard Behaviora at Jambhugoda WLS, Gujarat . The Leopard Girl is now investigating on the elusive Forest Owlets in Melghat Tiger Reserve as a JRF. Inshiya’s energy is contagious. If you find a short-haired girl aimlessly running here and there in the forests, you have bumped into Inshiya for sure!!!

Dhruv Parmar | JRF

Dhruv has completed MSc in Environmental Science with a specialization in Wildlife Conservation from MIT-WPU Pune. For his dissertation he worked on Odonates of Salt Panes of Dwaraka, Gujarat. Currently posted as a Junior Biologist at Melghat Tiger Reserve, he studies diversity & distribution of odonates. Dhruv has excellent writing and analysis skills and you will find him scribbling in his book if he is not with a binocular.

Amey Paranjape | Visiting Researcher

Amey has completed MSc in Environmental Science with a specialization in Wildlife Conservation from MIT-WPU Pune. He currently works with Banyan Tree Foundation in Pench TR as an Education Officer. Amey has previous working experience in the tiger country with BNHS. For his masters thesis, he worked on socioecology in tiger landscape, particularly human-wildlife conflict. Generally a quite, away from crowd person, Amey is a true representation of the nature itself!

Arjit Jere | Podcast Co-creator

Arjit Jere is associated with CUL on and off for several years. At present, he works as a podcast co-creator for the People of Nature Podcast funded by the 5th IndiaBioscience Outreach Grants. Arjit is an ecologist turned nature writer and nature educator. He has written numerous blogs, articles for several reputed magazines and news papers. His past research experience includes projects on the ecology of insects, spiders and birds.

Shubham More | Visiting Researcher

Shubham works on urban bats of Pune. He is meticulous and sincere in his work, most of the time lost in roosts and his own laughter! He completed his MSc Environmental Science with Wildlife Conservation specialization from MIT-WPU Pune.

Alumni

Atharva Kulkarni: Project Scientist, Freelancer
Swara Bakshi: RRBCEA, Pune
Saumitra Dhere: Freelance Naturalist
Gokul Madhav: BS-MS student, IISER Trivendrum
Nimish Subramanian: PhD Student, CES, IISc
Aditya Date: MS student, Germany
Tejas Mehendale: Naturalist, Coorg, Karnataka
Hrishikesh Karandikar: Project Assistant, WRCS Pune
Madhur Rathi: Family Business
Divyanshu Pawar: Project Coordinator, Symbiosys Climate Change Center
Sourav Dutta: Carbon Analyst, KrypC Bangalore
Hrishikesh Dhapate
Madhura Agashe: BioGeoSys Lab, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneshwar
Rubina Rajan
Swagata Das: Pursuing masters
Apeksha Darshetkar: Educator with Center for Wildlife Studies (CWS)
Nikhil Joshi: Independent educator, Pune
Vaidehi Gujarathi: Landscape architect, Tree Public, Pune
K. Dolsy David: Research Fellow at WCS, Mumbai
Preethi Srinivasan: Research Fellow, BNHS
Yash Damania: Software Engineer, Volkswagen India, Pune
Abhishek Wahane: Research Intern, NITI Aayog, New Delhi
Swaroop Nayak: Technology analyst, Deloitte USI Risk & Financial Advisory
Prasath Selvaraj: JRF, SACON, Coimbatore
Yash Chaudhari: Trainee Data Scientist, Abzooba India Infotech Pvt Ltd
Aakriti Bhat: TCS, Mumbai
Aditya Hundekari: ZS Associates, Pune
Shravan Paralikar: Independent Researcher

Former Interns

Yogesh Kalebere
Archita Londhe
Yash Khare
Sakshi Chakve
Aditya Khochare
Aishwarya Kasar