I obtained a Masters degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and Centre for Wildlife Studies in 2006, and a PhD in Biology from NCBS in 2015. I am particularly interested in tropical forest ecology, relationships between biodiversity, ecological processes and ecosystem services, and ecological restoration. My PhD research, which I undertook in collaboration with NCF, looked at how rainforest fragmentation alters forest structure and tree community composition, and resultant effects on the ability of these forests to store carbon and thereby mitigate climate change. I joined NCF's rainforest restoration project in 2016 and spent over a year helping establish research and monitoring projects looking into forest dynamics, biodiversity and ecosystem services in ecologically restored rainforests. Presently based at Columbia University, I continue to partner with NCF’s rainforest restoration programme on these long-term research and monitoring initiatives.