Harini Nagendra is a Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India, where she coordinates the Centre for Urban Ecological Sustainability. She is an ecologist who uses satellite remote sensing coupled with field studies of biodiversity, archival research, institutional analysis, and community interviews to examine the factors shaping the social-ecological sustainability of forests and cities in the south Asian context. Prof. Nagendra is a recipient of a 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award for her research and practice on issues of the urban commons. She has over 150 research publications, and is an active science communicator in newspapers, magazines and blogs. Her book “Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future” (Oxford University Press India, April 2016) examines the transformation of human-nature interactions in Bangalore from the 6th century CE to the present, addressing the implications of such change for the urban sustainability of fast-growing cities in the global South.
