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.
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. She has a Master’s degree in Ecology, Environment, and Sustainable Development from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a PG Diploma in Environmental Law and Policy from NLU. Her other interests lie in books and movies, photography, nature journaling, caffeine, cats, and owls!
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!
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 4th 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. He currently works as a nature writer for Youth COSMO kids environment magazine Pune
Swara Bakshi | MSc Student
Swara is a M.Sc. Environmental Science with MIT-WPU Pune. She works on interrelations between urban birds and old growth fig trees for her masters dissertation. Swara is an avid birdwatcher and is interested in natural history and ecology. While traveling, she likes to grab the window seat and overthink throughout the journey!
Atharva Kulkarni | MSc Student
Atharva is our local spiderman! He walks and talks spiders. He is always busy looking for spiders. He has recently described a new species of Spider from Pune.
Shubhankar Khangar | Project Coordinator
Shubhankar is a MSc Environmental Science student with MIT-WPU. He works with CUL as the project coordinator and manages communication during the workshops of the CUL Academy. He is also involved in a urban owl mapping project. A cat person, Shubhankar is one of those crazy fellas you will get to see when you visit us!
Amey Paranjape | MSc Student
Amey is a MSc Environmental Science student with MIT-WPU. He works with CUL as the field coordinator and manages field logistics during the workshops of the CUL Academy as well projects under CUL. He is also involved in a urban owl mapping project. Amey has previous working experience in the tiger country with BNHS. He has a great deal of field knowledge and has done research on foraging behavior of mammals and socioecological studies. Generally a quite, away from crowd person, Amey is a true representation of the nature itself!
Inshiya Vohra | MSc Student
Inshiya is a MSc Environmental Science student with MIT-WPU. Inshiya aspires to become a RS-GIS specialist. She works on change detection analysis and LULC. Previously Inshiya worked on urban birds of Gujarat. Inshiya’s energy is contagious. If you find a short-haired girl aimlessly running here and there in the campus, you have bumped into Inshiya for sure!!!
Shubham More | MSc Student
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 is a MSc Environmental Science student with MIT-WPU.
Dhruv Parmar | MSc Student
Dhruv is a Biotechnology graduate trying to find his tune in Ecology! He is currently engaged in a biodiversity mapping project at Pondicherry with Sri Aurobindo Society along with Amey & Shubhankar. He is learning about socioecology for his forthcoming project. His purpose is to close the gap between wildlife and classrooms.
Alumni
- 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
- Ameya Deshpande: Research Assistant, WRCS, Pune
- Hrishikesh Karandikar: Project Assistant, WRCS Pune
- Madhur Rathi
- 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)
- Arjit Jere: Ph.D. Candidate, University of Alabama, Huntsville Campus, USA
- 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