Raman Sukumar is an Indian

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

best known for his work on the ecology of the

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus ''Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the no ...

and wildlife-human conflict. He also works on

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, and tropical forest ecology. He was born in India in 1955. In 1986, Sukumar helped to design the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, the first of its kind in India. In 1997, he set up the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, a public charitable trust that incorporates the Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre, an organization that has carried out several field projects in India and other Asian countries on elephants and their habitats. In 2006, he was awarded the

International Cosmos Prize The International Cosmos Prize was established in 1993, commemorating Expo '90 in Osaka, Japan. The objective of the prize was to develop the basic concept of Expo 90, "The Harmonious Coexistence between Nature and Mankind" and is awarded annually ...

, Japan, the first Indian to receive this award. He was also commended by the Prime Minister of India for contributions to the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...

(IPCC) that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

degree from the

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigiou ...

in 1977 and did a Masters in

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

at the same university. He obtained a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from the

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...

in 1985. He was a

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1991 and was the Chair at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science for over eight years (2004–12). He continues to pursue conservation-based scientific research as a professor at this centre and is often called upon to represent Indian wildlife scientists in international, national and regional governmental committees.

Awards and fellowships

* 1991: Presidential Award of the Chicago Zoological Society, USA * 1997: Order of the Golden Ark (The Netherlands) * 2000: Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences * 2003: Whitley Gold Award for International Nature Conservation UK * 2004: T. N. Khoshoo Memorial Award for Conservation Science, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, India * 2005: Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy * 2006:

, Japan * 2006: Fellow, Geological Society of India * 2013: Fellow, The World Academy of Sciences, Italy

Works

* ''The Asian Elephant: Ecology and Management'' (1989, Cambridge Univ. Press) * ''Elephant Days and Nights: Ten years with the Indian Elephant'' (1994, Oxford Univ. Press) * ''The Living Elephants: Evolutionary Ecology, Behavior and Conservation'' (2003, Oxford Univ. Press) * ''The Story of Asia's Elephants'' (2011, Marg Publishers)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sukumar, Raman 1955 births Indian environmentalists University of Madras alumni Living people Indian ecologists 20th-century Indian zoologists