MICROCLIMATE India
Microclimate India Research Team
Meet our dedicated team of researchers, passionate about studying the microclimates in the Western Ghats, each member brings unique expertise and experience to our pioneering effort. Our efforts are immensely supported by our collaborators in Sweden at Stockholm University and with The Green Concept in Pune, India
Pioneering Effort
Mr Balachandra Hegde (Principle Investigator) initiated the pioneering effort to document and research the impact of microclimate in the forests of the Western Ghats.
It is the first of its kind research in India. We compare various ecological factors with a network of microclimate data from the length of the Western Ghats.
Mr. Balachandra Hegde
[Kuvempu University]
Collaborative Approach
Collaboration is at the heart of our research methodology. We work closely with local communities, conservation organizations, and our international academic partner institutions to gather diverse perspectives and ensure the relevance and applicability of our research outcomes. Our partner Dr Carolina Greiser has supported us with loggers and field technology to collect microclimate data.
Dr. Carolina Greiser
[Stockholm University]
Environmental Analytics
Our team comprises experts from diverse fields such as ecology, climatology, and data science. Their collective experience enables us to gain valuable insights into the intricate microclimate dynamics of the Western Ghats.
Rohan focusses on the data analyses in the project using R programming.
Dr. Rohan Shetti
[The Green Concept Labs]
Impactful Contributions
Our team's research is possible only becuase of dedicated network of scientists. By publishing our findings we aim to raise awareness and inspire action for the sustainable preservation of the Western Ghats. Dr Mandar Datar and his team have provided access to various sites in Northern Maharashtra to set up data loggers on various sites
Dr. Mandar Datar
[Agharkar Research
Institute]
He is a Wenner-Gren Fellow at Bob Muscarella's lab studying the regulatory dynamics of photosynthesis in plants and tropical forest trees in response to heat. He measure photosynthetic light absorption using an instrument 'Aghora' which he developed since his Ph.D. He is keen on understanding how plants and ecosystems function in general.
Dr. Rakesh Tiwari,
Post Dactoral Fellow, Uppsala University, Sweeden
Dr Meghana Krishnadas, a dedicated ecologist has hosted multiple microclimate loggers and is studying the changes in microclimate temperatures within and on the edge of forests in Central and Southern Western Ghats
Dr Meghana Krishnadas
National Centre for Biological Sciences
Mr Nirmal Kulkarni and his team at Mhadei Research centre have been pivotal in contributing to this study. They have made forest sites available for data collection and have provided insights about the nature of the local ecosystem from Northern Western Ghats
Mr. Nirmal U Kulkarni,
Director, Mhadei Research Centre.
Swanand is a researcher, educator and freelancer in the science of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), Anthropocene and sustainability studies. He practises the science of CAS to understand, document and model the complex dynamics of coupled social-natural systems. Through this lens, he engages in the projects exploring the interplay between microclimate and the social-ecological complexity of the landscapes, among other things.
Mr. Swanand Khanapurkar
MS in Physics and Complexity Science
from IISER Pune, India and ASU, USA.
Aboli is the co-founder of The Green Concept, an institute for Carbon Assessment and Restoration Ecology. She is an expert in vegetation ecology, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration assessments of forests. Her additional areas of expertise include Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Species Distribution Modeling (SDM), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), biodiversity reporting, plant taxonomy, and ecology or the Western Ghats.
Dr. Aboli Kulkarni (PhD)
Agharkar Research Institute, Pune
Max Planck Institute, Germany
Girish is the co-founder of The Green Concept, an institute for Carbon Assessment and Restoration Ecology. He is a mathematician and data scientist with expertise in handling ecological, business, and social science data. Currently, he is pursuing post-doctoral research in artificial intelligence (AI) and the mathematics of machine learning.
Dr. Girish Kulkarni (PhD),
IIT-Madras, IISER Pune and Heinrich Heine University, Germany