Our Board, Leadership and Team
Governing Board/ Research Advisory Board/ Research Team/ Knowledge Management & Communication/
Project Fellow/ Finance/ Field Staff/ Intern
Governing Board
Prof. B. K. Joshi (Chairman)
Ex Vice Chancellor, Kumaun University Nainital, Director, Doon Library, Dehradun
Dr. Rajesh Thadani
Senior Fellow, Centre For Ecology Development And Research, Dehradun
Mr. S.T.S. Lepcha (Member)
IFS, Former Managing Director Forest Corporation, Dehradun
Dr. Ashish Tewari
Associate Professor, Kumaun University Nainital.
Dr. Vishal Singh, Ex-officio
Executive Director, Centre For Ecology Development And Research, Dehradun
Research Advisory Board
Prof. K. Shivaramakrishnan
India & South Asia Studies, Anthropology; School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University
Prof. Bhaskar Vira
Department of Geography, Cambridge University, United Kingdom
Prof. J.S. Singh
FNA, FNASc, FASc, FTWA, Professor Emeritus Department of Botany, Banaras Hindu University
Dr. Meg Lowman
Ph.D. Director of Global Initiatives & Senior Scientist in Plant Conservation California, Academy of Sciences
Dr. Ann M. Fraser
Ph. D. Professor and Chair of Biology Kalamazoo College, Michigan, USA
Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni
Director, ACWADAM
Pune
Research Team
Dr. Rajesh Thadani
Senior Fellow
Dr. Thadani is a forest ecologist with a Ph.D. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is the Director of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP-India) and has an adjunct position at the Yale F&ES. His work focusses on the central Himalayan oak-pine ecosystems, ecosystem services and issues pertaining to anthropogenic disturbances.
Prof. P. C. Tewari
Senior Fellow
Professor Tiwari is a distinguished academic, currently Senior Fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research and Professor Emeritus at Kumaun University, India. His expertise lies in Micro Regional Planning, Mountain Sustainable Development, and Climate Change Adaptation. Previously, he served at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. Engaging in international collaborations with organizations like NASA, EU, and USAID, he has undertaken multi-institutional research projects. Professor Tiwari holds leadership roles in Himalayan initiatives and has received prestigious fellowships, including JSPS in Japan and DFG in Germany. He is Vice Chair of the Commission on Cold and High- Altitude Regions; at the International Geographical Union and a member of advisory boards for global initiatives in urban ecology and environmental governance, recognized as a Fellow of UGEC and ESG under the IHDP.
Dr. Mohit Chaturvedi
Senior Fellow
Mohit has worked in the development sector for over fifteen years in program monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment of programs, program design, and applied social research. He is interested in the everyday practices of individuals and groups and why these change or remain unchanged. He has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the Australian National University (ANU) and an M.Phil in development studies from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex. Mohit has worked in India, UK, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Australia. He has been intermittently associated with CEDAR since 2009.
Dr. Vishal Singh (Senior Fellow)
Executive Director
Dr. Singh has a doctorate in Forestry and identifies himself as a translational ecologist who has been working with diverse set of actors in Himalayan region to extend research beyond theory and is motivated by research that leads to serve the needs of natural resource managers and decision makers. Dr. Singh leads the thematic areas Urbanization and water security and Climate change adaptation at CEDAR. Dr. Singh’s key area of research within the thematic areas are knowledge empowerment and citizens science.
Dr. Hemant R Ojha
Senior Fellow (Honorary)
Dr. Ojha is an expert on environmental policy and governance. He has championed the development community forestry in Nepal and acted as an action researcher, activist and policy analyst. Dr Ojha has been collaborating with CEDAR since 2013 on various research projects, including the UK funded research on political economy of water governance in partnership with University of Cambridge.
Dr. Pushpendra Rana
Senior Fellow (Honorary)
Dr. Pushpendra Rana is an Indian Forest Officer (Himachal Pradesh), Government of India. He completed his doctoral degree from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, US and works as an expert in spatial analysis and program evaluation. Dr. Rana adds value to CEDAR by providing guidance to our researchers on advanced spatial analytical techniques and statistical based approaches to explore research objectives in the field of environmental and forest governance. His honorary affiliation with CEDAR has benefitted the organization intellectually on several dimensions related to landscape ecology and management in the Western Himalayan region.
Dr. Pia Sethi
Senior Fellow
Dr. Sethi is an ecologist with a Doctorate degree in Ecology from the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her research focuses on the consequences of human activity on the forest ecosystems including the dynamics of plant-animal interactions. Her current work is on community-based conservation, ecotourism, impacts of hunting on ecosystems and traditional ecological knowledge & folklore, particularly in the Ladakh and North-East region of India.
Mr. Chetan Agarwal
Senior Fellow
Chetan is specialized in policy analysis of ecosystem services of forests and mixed landscapes. He has a degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington. Chetan has expertise in promoting management for ecosystem services including forest watershed services and biodiversity at multiple scales using diverse instruments including tenure, zoning, regulations and incentive systems. He has worked extensively in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana Aravalli’s and Central tribal states.
Dr. Vijay Ramprasad
Senior Fellow (Honorary)
Dr. Vijay has graduated from University of Illinois and is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota, Saint Paul. He examines the relationships among local institutions, rural livelihoods and environment. He has published research on vulnerability, community-based forest management, forest carbon assessments, politics of development, and use of scientific information. He is also the founding coordinator of Kangra Integrated Sciences and Adaptation Network (KISAN.)
Dr. Nidhi Singh
Fellow
Nidhi Singh is working towards gender and social inclusion across thematic areas at CEDAR. She has been exclusively working on water scarcity and air pollution in rural and urban confines in the Himalayan region. At CEDAR she has also been involved in framing research approaches that integrate diverse knowledge and field-based learnings for implementation and policy advocacy. Creating popular knowledge products based on CEDAR research findings is also an area of interest. Nidhi holds a doctoral degree in Forestry from Kumaon University, Nainital.
Dr. Renu Suyal
Senior Research Associate
A Plant Biologist working on biodiversity conservation in the Himalayan region. Her doctoral work focused on source-specific variability in genetic makeup, propagation responses and change sensitivity of rare and threatened plants in the Western Himalaya. Dr. Suyal received the Young Scientist Award by the Uttarakhand State Council for Science and Technology (UCoST), Dehradun. She has proven excellence in ecological monitoring and assessment, development and standardization of propagation protocols, and phytochemical analysis of threatened medicinal plants of Himalaya. Her current research blends natural and social science methods to understand the processes in human-coupled ecosystems from the viewpoint of ecosystem services and forest disturbance.
Mr. Shivam Mishra
Project Assosiate
Shivam is a committed researcher holding a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Delhi University. His work is rooted in environmental communication, photojournalism, and stakeholder engagement, particularly across the Indian Himalayan region. At CEDAR, he has been involved in projects focusing on biodiversity conservation, solid waste management and air quality monitoring. In addition to his research, he actively engages in visual media and public outreach to raise awareness and promote sustainable practices.
Ms. Arista Roy
Research Assistant
Arista Roy is a museum and heritage professional with experience across India and the UK, specialising in inclusive exhibition design, collections care, and community-based storytelling. With academic training in Archaeology and Museum Studies, she brings a strong foundation in material culture and ethical museum practice. She is currently the lead researcher on Mussoorie's water heritage project at CEDAR, where she is developing an online interactive storyboard for the Living Waters Museum. Her work reflects a deep commitment to accessibility, sustainability, and the potential of museums to foster inclusive and socially engaged dialogue.
Research Fellows
Ms. Karuna Mira Shah
Junior Professional Fellow
Karuna has a Master's degree in geomatics from Stockholm University, Sweden, and a BSc degree in Earth Sciences from Dickinson College, USA. She is currently pursuing a postgraduate diploma in science communication from the University of Otago, New Zealand. Specializing in glaciology, she conducts research in arctic and alpine environments, utilizing advanced remote sensing and fieldwork techniques. As someone passionate about merging her research with visual storytelling, Karuna aspires to become a science communicator, bridging the gap between academia and the public within her field.
Ms. Mahika Phartiyal
Professional Research Fellow
Mahika Phartiyal is currently a Ph.D. scholar at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has a Master’s degree from Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Natural Resource Governance and honors in Sociology from Banaras Hindu University. She specializes in Socio-Ecological System Research and Vulnerability, Adaptive Capacity, and Governing Systems in the Himalayan region. Her research focuses on understanding the complexity of human-environment interactions and the changes faced by them due to the impact of climatic and non-climatic factors. The chief aim of her life is to make a social impact, especially in the rural and marginalized sectors. She has worked as a research associate in projects with the Gujjars and Bakerwal tribes in Jammu and Kashmir and the Raji tribe in Uttarakhand.
Mr. Tilak Tewari
Junior Professional Fellow
Tilak is an environmental historian at Te Herenga Waka, New Zealand. He studies high-altitude colonial resorts, commonly known as hill stations, in South and Southeast Asia established by colonists in the nineteenth century to escape the heat and diseases prevalent in the low-lying tropical plains. Mountainous tracts of the Indian subcontinent were arenas of scientific exploration and attracted colonial specialists interested in ideas of climate, health, sanitation as well as geology, cartography, and natural history. Critically evaluating the evolution and diffusion of scientific ideas in colonial mountain resorts, Tilak’s research frames the evolution of these sites in terms of the technologies and environmental negotiations that shaped them.
Project Fellow
Mr. Riyan Habeeb
Adjunct Fellow
Riyan holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Rural Planning from IIT Roorkee, and Bachelors in Architecture from NIT, Himachal Pradesh. His main research interest focuses on sustainable urbanism, interlinking built environment with natural environment and understanding land-use changes with ecosystem services. He is pursuing Ph.D. at Technische Universität Dresden, Fakultät Architektur, under DLGS Fellowship funded by The Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Germany.
Mrs. Sana Javaid
Sana is pursuing her Ph.D. from Technical University of Munich, Germany. She is a recipient of DAAD scholarship twice for her Ph.D. and Master’s research. Her interest lies in Sustainability, Landscape-Urbanism, Climate Responsive Design and Accessibility Planning. Her research is mainly on the impact of vegetation on the urban climate, co-linking the multi-sectoral benefits of vegetation with a special focus on its environmental and social benefits.
Finance & Administration
Mr. Anil Tyagi
Finance Officer
Anil holds a post-graduate degree in Commerce and has been involved in the development sector for the last 25 years. He is specialized in Rural Livelihood, Cooperative Management, Financial Management, Microfinance and Enterprise Development. Anil coordinates the overall financial management and monitoring of the organization. Currently, he is the Executive Director of Centre for Business and Entrepreneurial Development in Dehradun.
Mr. Yatendra Rawat
Assistant Acountant
Mr. Singh holds a postgraduate degree in Commerce and has over nine years of experience in the finance field. He has a strong background in financial management and supports the organization’s financial planning and coordination. At CEDAR, he works as an Assistant Accountant, contributing to financial monitoring and oversight.
Mr. Amit Bhakuni
Administrative Assistant
Mr. Bhakuni holds a Bachelor of Commerce (B.com) degree from Kumaun University, Nainital. He has previously served as an Administrative Officer at M.G. Shahani & Co., Dehradun. He has extensive experience in administrative areas such as procurement, vendor coordination, and local purchasing. By managing resources effectively, he supports the overall efficiency of office operations.
Field Staff
Mr. Narendra Singh Raikwal
Narendra has over 20 years of experience in field monitoring and research. He has been associated with the setting up of long-term monitoring plots and has worked in measuring and monitoring activities related to various aspects of the oak-pine ecosystem. He is based in the Mukteshwar and has extensive field knowledge of local forests.
Mr. Bhaskar Singh Raikwal
Bhaskar has experience in forest measurements and social research. He has been associated with CEDAR since 2015. He is skilled in data entry, routine measurements of forest, soil sampling (carbon and other macro nutrients) and operating instruments (Leaf Area Index meter, Soil moisture meter and Densitometer). Bhaskar provides an extra edge to the researches in social surveys in villages due his ability to speak the local language.