Doctoral Programmes

Athira Balakrishnan is a Ph. D. Scholar at School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, NIAS. She is guided by Prof. Sindhu Radhakrishna under the programme, Animal Behaviour and Cognition.

The title of her thesis is; From Wild to Vermin: A Study on Human-Wild pig Conflict in India. Wildlife species are occasionally designated as 'vermin,' ostensibly, in an attempt to reduce human-wildlife conflict. However, the motivations behind such policy initiatives are not always very clear. The objective of my study is to determine the events or procedures involved in declaring a wildlife species as vermin in India, using the wild pig as a case study. I propose to examine the human-wild pig conflict in two states in India, one where the species was declared vermin and one where there have been consistent efforts to do so. This is to understand the associations between wild pig crop depredation levels and farmers' attitudes toward the species; farmers' lobbies and the nature of their interface with the forest department and the state government; as well as how these interactions influence the larger process of vermin declaration. 

Prior to joining NIAS, she was working as a Junior Research Biologist in Salim Ai Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore. She completed her Masters in Animal Science from the Central University of Kerala and qualified CSIR-JRF.

She is interested in other broad research areas such as; conservation ecology, animal behaviour, butterfly taxonomy, insect collection and preservation techniques.

Pushya A Gautama (MD) is a formally trained Ayurveda physician and scholar. Her research interests include the philosophy of health and illness in Ayurveda, the phenomenology of healing and body in Ayurvedic textual and practice traditions, and the interfaces between Ayurveda and local healing traditions in South India. She is also interested in exploring the ethics and modalities of assessing Ayurvedic clinical interventions.

She is currently a doctoral scholar in the Consciousness Studies Programme, School of Humanities, under Prof. Sangeetha Menon. Her PhD thesis is focussed on exploring conceptions of well-being in the Caraka Saṃhitā through the lenses of consciousness, self and life-purpose.

Sayan is a PhD scholar interested in the aspects of human-wildlife relations; interdisciplinary dimensions of wildlife conservation in India; gender, environment and development; political ecologies of rural livelihood and environmental conservation, and environment and development in northeast India. For PhD, Sayan is examining behavioural and political ecologies of human-wild elephant interactions in the state of Assam, India with a critical focus on gendered interactions, impacts, adaptations and knowledge formations.

Other than PhD work, Sayan had looked into nature of community participation in wildlife conservation projects in the states of Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, India (2017-18); traditional hunting practices, bushmeat consumption patterns and cross-border wildlife trade in Nagaland, India (2016); impacts on local community due to degradation of a critical urban wetland in Kolkata, India (2019-20).

In 2021, Sayan has published two co-authored peer reviewed journal articles and one book chapter in an edited volume. The journal articles are titled : (1) On the inadequacy of environment impact assessments for projects in Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park of Goa: A peer review (Journal of Threatened Taxa), (2). ‘Everyday- Conservation’: A study of actors and processes in an elephant conservation project in Assam, India (Human Dimensions of Wildlife). The book chapter is titled as: Understanding borderlands through elephant corridors in the Yunan-Bengal-Burma Landscape (Routledge India)

Sayan has been awarded Junior Research Fellowship by University Grants Commission. For PhD fieldwork, Sayan has received grants from The Rufford Foundation, Inlaks Foundation and Idea Wild Foundation.

Prior to joining PhD, Sayan Completed B.E in Metallurgical and Material Engineering from Jadavpur University (Kolkata) and worked as Manager at Tata Steel Limited. With a shift in career, Sayan completed M.A in Ecology, Environment and Sustainable Development from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati.