Madhav Gadgil

Madhav Gadgil (born 1942) studied biology at University of Poona and University of Bombay before doing a Ph.D. thesis in the area of mathematical ecology at Harvard University. He has been an IBM Fellow of the Computing Centre, Research Fellow in Applied Mathematics and a Lecturer in Biology at Harvard University.

From 1973 to 2004 he was on the faculty of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore where he founded the Centre for Ecological Sciences. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Stanford and as a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.

Prof. Madhav Gadgil's research interests include population biology, conservation biology, human ecology and ecological history and he has published over 215 research papers and 6 books, "This Fissured Land" and "Ecology and Equity", "Diversity : The cornerstone of life" , "Nurturing Biodiversity: An Indian Agenda" “ Ecological Journeys”,and “People’s Biodiversity Registers: A Methodology Manual”." Two of his research papers have been recognized as citation classics. He writes regularly for popular media in English and Indian languages.

He developed strong traditions of working with researchers, teachers, and policy makers as well as NGO workers, farmers and other citizens throughout the country. This has led to innovative experiments of involving High School and College teachers and students in inventorying and monitoring of biodiversity. He worked on the committee that drafted India’s Biological Diversity Act 2002. He is active in a network of educational institutions working towards monitoring the biodiversity of Western Ghats established as a part of his activities as a Pew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment, and in a countrywide effort of voluntary agencies to prepare “Peoples’s Biodiversity Registers”. He currently chairs the Committee to revise the Environmental Education Curriculum at the School stage.

He was awarded the National Environmental Fellowship in recognition of his field research on the people-environment relationship on the hill chain of Western Ghats in India, where he has been involved in the establishment of the country's first biosphere reserve.

Prof. Gadgil was a member of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India from 1986-90 and chaired the Science and Technology Advisory Panel of Global Environment Facility from 1998-2002. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, Third World Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of the British Ecological Society and Ecological Society of America.

He is a recipient of the Shantiswarup Bhatnagar Award for Biological Sciences and the Vikram Sarabhai and Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar awards. Prof. Gadgil was awarded the prestigious Centennial Medal for the year 2002 from Harvard University, USA and the Volvo Environment Prize in 2003. He was conferred Padmashri and Padma Bhushan by the President of India and the Rajyotsava Award by the Government of Karnataka.

External links

* Prof. Madhav Gadgil's Homepage http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/
* Centre for Ecological Sciences http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/
* Indian Institute of Science http://www.iisc.ernet.in/
* Prof. Madhav Gadgil's publications http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/envis/mg/index.htm
* People's Biodiversity Registers http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/PBR.html