Harini Nagendra

Harini Nagendra is Director, School of Climate Change and Sustainability at Azim Premji University, and the author of several books including Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future; and Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities. Prof. Nagendra is an ecologist who uses satellite Earth Observation/Remote Sensing coupled with field studies of biodiversity, archival research, institutional analysis, and community interviews to examine the factors shaping the social-ecological sustainability of forests and cities in the south Asian context. She completed her PhD from the Centre for Ecological Sciences in the Indian Institute of Science in 1998. Since then, she has conducted research and taught at multiple institutions - including most recently as a Visiting Professor at Luiss University, Rome, in 2023. Her research has been recognized with numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University in 2025, a Clarivate Most Cited Indian Researcher in Interdisciplinarity in 2017, an Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award in 2013, and a Cozzarelli Prize in 2009 from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (with Elinor Ostrom). Harini has authored over 150 peer reviewed publications, and communicates her research for the public through newspaper and magazine articles, science blogs, and public talks. She was a past Scientific Steering Committee member of Global Land Project, and currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Programme for Ecosystem Change and Society, and the Advisory Committee of the Future Earth Urban KAN. She is an elected member of The World Academy of Sciences, the Indian Academy of Science and the Indian National Science Academy.