Professor Kamal Bawa

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Massachusetts
Founder-President of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment

Kamal Bawa is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Massachusetts, USA and Founder-President of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, one of India’s top-ranked environmental think tanks, based in Bangalore. Over the past five decades, Professor Bawa has worked extensively in the Himalayas and the Western Ghats on a wide range of issues, from biodiversity conservation to climate change, publishing more than 230 papers and 10 books.

Professor Bawa has received many awards, including: the Bullard Fellowship at Harvard University, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment, the Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowship at Harvard University (2009), the Gunnerus Prize in Sustainability Science from the Royal Norwegian Society of Letters and Sciences, the international MIDORI Prize in Biodiversity from the Aeon Foundation in Japan, the Linnean Medal, and honorary doctorates from the University of Alberta and Concordia University in Montreal. He is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Norwegian Society of Letters and Sciences, the Royal Society, the American Philosophical Society, and National Academy of Sciences in the USA. Kamal Bawa is the founding editor of two interdisciplinary journals: Conservation and Society and Ecology, Economy and Society.