Ms. Amarjeet Kaur
Contact me: amarjeet[at]wii[dot]gov[dot]in

I come from a city of chaos, Delhi where most of us suffer from nature deficit disorder. But I was lucky enough to still have that connect present in me which led me to join my M.Sc. in Biodiversity & Conservation from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. After the completion of my course, I moved to Dehradun where I joined the Wildlife Institute of India to work on the Amur Falcon conservation project in Nagaland and Manipur to understand their migration, stop-over sites and diet in Northeast Indian region. The positive outcome of the project was to witness the local hunters turn into the protectors of these migratory falcons which helped me realize the concept of research and conservation involving local people. Following this, I registered for my PhD understanding the nesting ecology and population genetics of a long-distance migrant, the Barn Swallow in the Himalaya. Currently as a PhD student I have joined the DST-NMSHE project (Phase II) where my focus is to understand select group of avian species across the different elevation belts in the Himalayan region and their response to changing climatic conditions. Besides research, the field of wildlife also motivates me to find time to paint (mostly) birds on paper and sometimes on rock.

Ms. Manisha Mathela
Contact me: mmanisha[at]wii[dot]gov[dot]in

I like observing patterns in nature and the distribution of diversity at different levels of organizations. I am interested in understanding how organisms would respond to anthropogenic stressors in terms of their functional traits at spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, joining NMSHE phase II came to me rather organically.

I have an Honors in Botany and, a master’s in environmental studies both from the University of Delhi. Previously, at the ‘Centre for Inter-disciplinary Studies of Mountain & Hill Environment (CISMHE), University of Delhi’, as a part of my master’s dissertation, I studied the responses of diatom communities to the external disturbances, in the freshwater lakes of Kumaun. I have worked on the highly-threatened Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Himalaya and created a documentary on the impacts of effluents emanating from the dying houses of Panipat, Haryana, on the underground water quality and the associated health concerns. Currently, I have been working on mammals of Uttarakhand ranging from lower to the trans-Himalayan landscapes.

I appreciate natural history, behavioral psychology, and art!

Ms. Norzin Lhamu Tshering
Contact me: norzinlhamu[at]wii[dot]gov[dot]in

I belong to Sikkim, a small state in the eastern Himalayas and hence was fascinated by the mountains since a young age. I did my bachelor's and master's in zoology from Delhi University and I am currently a PhD scholar associated with Wildlife Institute of India. My interests lie in studying Himalayan wildlife and its conservation. I have joined the NMSHE phase II project as a junior research fellow and I will be examining the effects of climate change on Himalayan mammals.