Nita Shashidharan

Research Interests:

My research spans four key domains: Landscape Sustainability Science, Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing, Conservation and Livelihoods, and Global Environmental Change.

My core research interests include - 

a) the monitoring and analysis of environmental change over space and time and its relevance for landscape conservation,

b) understanding patterns and processes that are drivers of change in human-environmental interactions,

c) addressing questions of sustainable land use with a focus on conservation and livelihoods,

d) advances in remote sensing and GIS especially open source and its potential application for citizen science and environmental monitoring. 

I am keen on being a researcher and educator who engages in activities that target science, policy, practice and outreach. 

My PhD research aims to understand the spatio-temporal trends & patterns in forest-agricultural land use/land cover and linked provisioning ecosystem services in a protected area in South India. For this, I use both natural and social sciences methods - remote sensing and GIS, time series and geo-computation skills, land surveys, vegetation assessment, interviews and focus group discussions to examine underlying concerns of sustainable land use and people-PA conflicts and co-existence.

Doctoral Advisory Committee: 

Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Indian Institute for Human Settlements

Dr. Milind Bunyan, ATREE 

Dr. Harini Nagendra, Azim Premji University

Dr. Anita Varghese, Keystone Foundation

Education:

M.Sc. Environmental Science, (2011), Institute of Science, University of Mumbai

B.Sc. Life Science, (2008), Sophia College, University of Mumbai

Professional Networks:

Member, Women in Geospatial +

Member, Global Land Programme (GLP)

Advisory Board, Young Ecosystem Service Specialists (YESS)

Executive Team Member, RLadies Bengaluru, A Wing of the RLadies Global Initiative

Member, American Geophysical Unit - Advancing Earth and Space Sciences (AGU)

Member, American Association of Geographers (AAG)

Member, International Network of Research on Coupled Human and Nature Systems (CHANS)

Co-Founder and on past Editorial Board (along with a group of other young researchers at ATREE Research Assistants, Research Associates, Interns, PhD students), ATREE Young Researchers Network Blog (2016 to 2022)

Conferences:

(2022) Oral presentation on - "Of Bandits, Conservation, and Climate: Changing forest-agricultural livelihood relations in Oorali villages in a Protected Areas in South India" at the Forest and Livelihoods Conference, Rome, Italy. (Virtual Presentation) 

(2019) Poster presentation on – “Changing forest-agricultural dynamics and provisioning ecosystem services under climatic variability and institutional change: A Case of a Tropical Tiger Reserve in India” at the Central Indian Landscape Symposium, Melghat, Maharashtra.

(2012) Poster presentation on “Monitoring and Evaluating Land Use/Land Cover using remote sensing and geographic information system as a tool – A participatory approach” at Students Conference of Conservation Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka.

Grants, Awards, and Fellowships:

Nagrathna Memorial + Gurusiddappa Sulkunte and Ujjawala Sulkunte Grant (NMG+GSUS 2022)

Education Grant (Aug 2015 to Aug 2020), Tata Education Trust

Green Lead Fellowship, to support the project “Citizen Science: Assessing its potential and capacity building for the environment” along with team member Parveen Shaikh

Lectureship (Environmental Science), State Eligibility Test, Maharashtra

Peer-reviewed Publications:

A. Peer-reviewed Publications

Sreejith, K. A., Sreekumar, V. B., Prashob, P., Nita, S., Prejith, M. P., & Sanil, M. S. (2020). A checklist of angiosperm flora of low elevation lateritic hills of northern Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 12(9), 16077-16098.                                                                                                                                                Shashidharan, N. and Quadros, G. (2013). Bridging gaps: Open Source geospatial technology as a public participatory tool for landscape assessment. In: Proceedings of the National Conference on Biodiversity: Status and Challenges in Conservation – ‘FAVEO’ 2013, 224-229. ISBN: 978-81-923628-1-6

Book Contributions:

Subject Expert, (2018 - 2019).Green World - 101 Things to Do Series on Earth, Plant, Animals, Water, Air. Puffin Publication (5 books).

Print and Online Popular Articles:

Shashidharan, N. & Weins, N. Volunteering our Way to Better support Networks for Young Ecosystem Service Researchers. October, 2022. Nature Words Blog - The Blog of the Young Ecosystem Service Specialist (YESS) Network, Medium.  

Shashidharan, N. Dr. Harini Nagendra: Ecologist by profession, writer by passion. September, 2022. A Rukhmabai fellowship initiative to cover Indian women in STEM by women journalists. 

Shashidharan, N. A Teacher a Student Remembers. 2021. ATREE Young Researchers Network Blog. 

Shashidharan, N. Of Land and Rights. 2019. ATREE Young Researchers Network Blog.

Shashidharan, N. & Warrier, D. On Birds and Databases. Hornbill. July-September, 2013. PP 27-30. Print.

Shashidharan, N. 'Trees For All-The Importance of Green Cover'. The Green Runner. 1(1). November 2012. GreenLine e-newsletter.